Rose and Ten The Updated Inbetweens and backstories
by SciFiFanForever
Summary: I have updated the story to include all the BBC books, filling in the bits between episodes, books, and back stories of things mentioned by the characters with new chapters, scenes and dialogue. I have tried not to include too many spoilers for people who haven't read the books, and can highly recommend them. (The PDF versions are available at iguanasrus)
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 **48 Bucknall House.**

 **Powell Estate, Peckham.**

 **Christmas afternoon.**

The Doctor returned from the TARDIS, dressed in a brown pinstriped suit and long brown coat. "God, he looks hot", Rose thought to herself, giving him a big smile. Was this man really her Doctor, the man who used to have big ears and a daft grin? She couldn't help thinking that she'd seen him in that outfit before. But she couldn't have, because before today, he had worn the leather jacket, black jumper and trousers, and then pyjamas and a dressing gown.

'Here, that's for you,' Jackie said, handing him a parcel wrapped in Christmas paper. 'Not that you deserved it when you were all big ears and a moody git.' She was still trying to get her head around the fact that he was supposed to be the same man.

'Mum!' Rose said, in an 'I can't believe you just said that' tone of voice.

'Well he was…, all northern an' sullen.'

The Doctor gave a single laugh, because he couldn't really disagree. 'Thank you Jackie, I'm afraid I didn't get you anything though, sorry.'

She smiled at him. 'Oh yes you did.' She nodded at Rose behind him. He'd given her the best Christmas present ever, her daughter. For months, after Rose had opened the TARDIS console and disappeared, she hadn't know if she was alive or dead.

He unwrapped the present, to find a bottle of…, vinegar?

'Er, thank you Jackie,' he said uncertainly. He'd never received a bottle of vinegar as a present before.

'Well, I thought, you can put it on yer chips that I know you're fond of, and you can use it on them Slitherin' things if ya ever meet 'em again,' she told him.

'Slitheen,' Rose corrected.

'Yeah, them an' all.'

The Doctor beamed a smile at her and pulled her into a hug. 'That's brilliant! Two presents in one. . ., brilliant. Thank you.'

'An' this is for you sweetheart.' Jackie handed her a box wrapped in red paper. 'I didn't know if you'd be home for Christmas,' she said with a tear in her eye.

Rose gave her a warm smile and pulled her into a hug. 'Thanks Mum…, for everythin'. An' this is for you,' Rose said, handing her a pyramid shaped parcel.

They exchanged gifts with Mickey as well, and after opening them, they sat down to eat at the dining table, enjoying a remarkably well cooked Christmas lunch. They pulled crackers, read terrible jokes, and put on paper hats. Rose couldn't stop looking at this man who was now the Doctor…, her Doctor.

This man was supposed to be her big eared, daft faced Doctor, and he was…, but at the same time, he wasn't. (Trust him to do something like this) This "him" seemed to be somehow more comfortable in his skin, less haunted by his past. The old "him" certainly wouldn't sit down with a family and enjoy Christmas, he wouldn't even have a shepherd's pie.

He saw Rose looking at him and smiled warmly, waggling his eyebrows cheekily. He had surprised himself by agreeing to stay and have lunch, and even more surprised that he was actually enjoying it, although he was sure that Rose being there had a lot to do with that.

Jackie had also noticed that this "him" was more relaxed and amenable, the other miserable git would never have stayed for Christmas, he'd have been off, taking Rose with him, and leaving her on her own for Christmas.

'Hey, Doctor, there's something I've been wonderin',' Mickey said, as he tucked into his turkey dinner. 'What happened to Captain Face, y'know, Jumpin' Jack Flash?'

'Who?' Jackie said.

'Oh yeah,' Rose said. 'You said he was busy rebuilding the Earth.'

The Doctor stopped eating, and stared ahead for a moment, his expression slightly sad. 'Jack's timeline took a different path to ours on the Game Station.'

'Jumpin' Jack Flash?' Jackie said.

'Will we ever see him again?' Rose asked hopefully.

The Doctor was remembering how he had felt Jack come back to life, and how wrong it felt. His whole existence was an offence to time itself, and he felt it like nausea or heartburn. He was brought back to the present by Rose's question and smiled at her. 'Knowing Jack, you can bet on it.'

'Who the bloody 'ell is Jack?' Jackie asked forcefully.

'Oh Mum, you'd have loved 'im. Captain Jack Harkness, he was an outrageous flirt.' They proceeded to tell Jackie and Mickey about the gas mask people in World War II, and the Chula ship that crashed.

They had the TV on in the background, watching various Christmas themed programs. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister, was on the news, with reporters hounding her about health scares, when the phone rang.

'It's Beth,' Jackie told them. 'She says go and look outside.'

'Why?' Rose asked.

'I don't know,' she said, rolling her eyes, 'just go outside and look. Come on, shift!'

They put on their coats, and filed out of the door and down to the courtyard.

'Oh, it's beautiful. What are they, meteors?' Rose said. It was a proper Christmas evening, with snow falling and shooting stars in the sky.

The Doctor looked up with a sad expression. 'It's the spaceship breaking up in the atmosphere. This isn't snow, its ash.'

'Okay, not so beautiful,' Rose said.

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets. 'This is a brand new planet Earth. No denying the existence of aliens now, everyone saw it, everything's new.'

Rose hesitated, looking at her hands 'And what about you? What are you going to do next?'

'Well….,' he started, looking at the TARDIS and back to her. 'Back to the TARDIS. Same old life.'

Rose had to stop herself from nervously biting her nails. 'On your own?'

'Why, don't you want to come?' he asked quickly.

'Well, yeah,' she said eagerly.

'Do you, though?' He remembered her reaction to his regeneration.

'Yeah!' she shot back, she SO wanted to be back in the TARDIS with…, well, him.

'I just thought. . ., because I'd changed.'

'Yeah, I thought, 'cos you'd changed…, you might not want me anymore,' she said, frowning.

He gave her a big, open mouthed smile. 'Oh, I'd love you to come.'

'Okay,' she said, and they just stood there, grinning at each other like idiots.

A sad, resigned voice behind her broke the spell. 'You're never going to stay, are you?' Mickey said.

Both Rose and the Doctor looked at him. 'There's just so much out there,' she told him. 'So much to see…, I've got to.'

He understood that, he really did. 'Yeah,' he said with a smile.

'Well, I reckon you're mad,' Jackie told them with her arms crossed. 'The pair of you…. It's like you go looking for trouble.'

The Doctor skipped over to her and put his arm around her shoulders, looking up to the sky. 'Trouble's just the bits in-between. It's all waiting out there, Jackie. . ., and it's brand new to me. All those planets, and creatures…, and horizons. I haven't seen them yet. . .! Not with these eyes.' He walked back over to Rose. 'And it is going to be…, fantastic.'

He grinned at Rose and held out his hand for her.

'That hand of yours still gives me the creeps,' she said with a laugh. He wiggled his fingers, and hesitantly, she took hold of it. As soon as she held his hand, all doubt and hesitation vanished as she felt the familiar tingle up her spine. As long as she had his hand to hold, everything would be all right.

She snuggled up to him and hugged his arm. 'So, where're we going to go first?'

He looked up, deciding on a destination. 'Er….' He pointed at the bright star cluster NGC 5897 in the constellation of Libra. 'That way,' he announced, and then changed his mind. 'No, hold on.' He pointed to the constellation of Virgo, and the super giant elliptical galaxy of M87. 'That way.'

Rose pointed hesitantly in the same direction. 'That way?' she asked.

'Hmm?' he queried, he wanted her approval.

'Yeah, that way,' she agreed, and they grinned at each other again.

'Well, you two star gazers ain't goin' anywhere,' Jackie told them.

They both took their eyes from the celestial light show, and frowned at her.

'And why not?' Rose asked haughtily.

'Cos there's Christmas puddin' and mince pies to be eaten yet,' she said with a smirk.

'Brandy sauce?' the Doctor asked with a smile.

'Of course!' Jackie said.

The Doctor looked at Rose and winked. 'We ain't goin' anywhere yet,' he said, imitating Jackie's accent.

And so, they all headed back to the flat to enjoy the rest of their Christmas together. Everyone pitched in to help Jackie with the washing up, before sitting in front of the TV to watch the Christmas specials and chat about life, the universe (that was the Doctor's topic), and everything.

Jackie told them about the months when she was alone, not knowing if they were alive or dead. They both looked suitably sorry and embarrassed for putting her through that torment, and the new "him" vowed that he would keep reminding Rose to call or text her to let her know she was all right.

Mickey remained unsurprisingly quiet on that subject.

'Why don't you stay tonight, and then you can make a fresh start in the mornin'?' Jackie said as she realised that it was late.

'Watcha think?' Rose asked the Doctor.

He rubbed the back of his neck (a mannerism Rose would come to adore), and shrugged his shoulders. 'Fine by me,' he said with a smile.

'That's settled then,' Jackie said. 'Doctor, you can have the spare room again. You must like the bed in there, you spent most of Christmas mornin' in it,' she said with a smirk.

The Doctor chuckled at her sarcasm. 'I'm fine Jackie; I'll just sit and catch up with all the news on TV.'

Rose saw the concerned look on her mother's face. 'It's all right Mum, he doesn't need as much sleep as we do.'

And then the Doctor realised he could give Jackie a Christmas present after all. 'Ooh, Jackie, how many channels have you got on your TV?'

'I don't know. . ., all the free ones.'

He took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and held it up, grinning and waggling his eyebrows (another mannerism Rose would adore). 'How would you like all of them?'

'Wha? You can do that?' she said open mouthed.

'Merry Christmas Jackie Tyler.'

* * *

 **48 Bucknall House.**

 **Powell Estate, Peckham.**

 **Boxing Day morning.**

Mickey had been invited around for a breakfast fry up and the big send off, when Rose and the Doctor would leave. They were sat at the dining table, eating, whilst Jackie went to make a pot of tea.

'Who's been at the jam?' she called through the serving hatch. 'There's sticky fingerprints over the label.'

The Doctor cleared his throat and seemed to be focussing on something interesting on his plate as he ate.

'Did I hear the door go in the middle of the night?' Rose asked, brushing over her mother's investigation into the jam thief.

'Yes, that was me, I moved the TARDIS away from the bins, and over to the playground. Didn't want it getting cluttered up with post Christmas cardboard boxes and rubbish now, did I?'

'Oh yeah, good idea.'

'So, are you all packed then?' Jackie said to her daughter as she brought the tea in.

'Yeah. I've got quite a bit of stuff in my room on the TARDIS already,' Rose told her.

'Oh, you've got a room?' Jackie said. She hadn't considered the living arrangements on that weird ship and that there might be more than just that console room.

'Yeah, it's a copy of my room here. The TARDIS did it to make me feel at home…, do you want to see?'

For some reason, that question made Jackie feel uncomfortable. Was it that alien ship, which made you feel dizzy when you walked through the door, or was it that it was the Doctor's, and now her daughter's new home?

'Nah, yer all right Sweetheart, if it's anythin' like yer room here, it'll be a mess,' she said with a smirk as she supped her tea.

The Doctor laughed. 'No, the TARDIS doesn't like mess, if Rose doesn't pick up her things, the TARDIS does it for her, and then she can't find anything.'

'Doesn't like mess?' Jackie said, rolling her eyes. 'Don't forget, I've seen that ship of yours…, a right shambles!'

'Ooh, I'm glad we weren't in the TARDIS when you said that, Mum, she'd have had a right strop.'

'Right then,' the Doctor said, putting his empty mug on the table. 'Are you ready?' he asked Rose.

She gave him that broad smile. 'Oh yeah, I am SO ready for this.'

It had been a great Christmas, even more so now that the Doctor was more amenable to doing domestic, but her feet were getting "itchy" again for the stars. She went into her room and brought out her bulging rucksack. She put her winter coat on and her woollen hat, before putting on a shoulder bag and shrugging on her rucksack.

Hand in hand, they walked out of the flat, with Jackie and Mickey following, and headed for the playground on the estate, the same playground where she had seen the Bad Wolf message three months earlier. The Doctor went ahead into the TARDIS and started powering up the console. Rose, Jackie, and Mickey were outside, saying their final farewells.

'Have you got everything?' Jackie asked.

'I've got everything, don't worry,' Rose said, giving her mum a big, long hug.

'Be careful,' Jackie said from inside the hug.

'You'll have to call Mo about that…,' Rose started to say.

'Oh, never mind Mo,' Jackie told her. She knew where the CD was that Rose had borrowed, she'd return it later.

The light on the TARDIS started to flash and the sound of the engines started up.

'Okay, I'm going now…, I love you!' She gave her mum another quick squeeze.

'I love you,' Jackie said.

'Love you, love you,' she replied.

She stood in front of Mickey and held his face, kissing him full on the lips. She owed him that much.

'Love you,' he said hopefully.

Rose couldn't bring herself to say it back. 'Bye,' she said, smiling, and turned to run into the TARDIS.

Jackie turned and walked away as the TARDIS faded away. Mickey just stood there, watching sadly, as his now ex-girlfriend left. When the TARDIS had completely disappeared, he looked into the distance briefly, before following Jackie back to the flats, and back to reality.

The time rotor pumped up and down as the Doctor operated the controls. Rose was able to assist with some of the non essential controls.

'So where are we going?' she asked him with a smile.

He leaned over towards her as he adjusted another setting. 'Further than we've ever gone before.'

She gave him an enormous smile, and they stood there, grinning at each other like idiots.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Whilst the Doctor shut down the console, Rose hurried out down the ramp and looked out side. This was her favourite bit of travelling with him, looking out on all the wonderful vistas for the first time.

'Where are we exactly?' she asked with a frown.

He walked down the ramp to join her. 'It's the year five billion and twenty three. We're in the galaxy M87; and this. . .'

'Cos it looks like a Clacton to me,' Rose finished.

'What makes you think it's Clacton?'

'That buildin' there on stilts, with the words "Clacton Pier" over the entrance,' she said, folding her arms and pouting her lips. 'Is this another one of those TARDIS hiccups?'

The Doctor shrugged on his long coat and scratched the back of his head. 'Yeah, must be,' he said sheepishly. Then he gave her his boyish grin. 'Still; look on the bright side; at least we can get an ice cream. A sort of stop off at the motorway services on our journey.'

Rose pulled up the hood on her light blue hoodie, and fell in step beside him, automatically holding his hand. They were heading towards "Luigi's Ices" on the sea front. The sign hanging in the door said "closed", but the Doctor knocked anyway as the lights were on and he could see someone moving about inside.

'We-a closed,' a male Italian voice called out.

'Sorry,' the Doctor called back cheerfully. 'We've only just arrived in town and were hoping to get a couple of 99s, y'know, the ones with the chocolate Flake stuck in them.'

'I know-a what a 99 is,' the elderly Luigi said as he walked to the door. He unlocked the door and opened it to see what pair of idiots would want an ice cream on a cold, wet, winters day. 'It's-a the middle of winter,' he announced, in case they had missed the point.

'We know,' the tall man in front of him nodded, his dishevelled hair lagging behind the movement.

'It's-a cold.'

'We know,' the cute blonde said, snuggling up to the tall man and hugging his arm.

'An' it's-a raining.'

'Is this a new service they provide now at the seaside, weather information with purchases?'

Rose nudged him to behave. 'We know, but it's the seaside and it's sort of traditional, innit.'

"Ah, young lovers" he thought to himself. Oblivious to the cold, the wet, and everything else except each other. He sighed and gave them a warm, fatherly smile. 'How could I disappoint the pretty young lady? You want-a sauce and sprinkles on your cones?'

The Doctor looked as though he'd explode with excitement. 'Strawberry sauce and "hundreds and thousands"! This day just keeps getting better and better.'

They walked along the damp sand, arm-in-arm, eating their ice cream cones. Rose watched as the Doctor's very dextrous tongue licked around the edge of the cone, preventing any ice cream from dribbling down. For a reason she couldn't explain, she found it very arousing.

* * *

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS and looked on in wonder at the sight in front of her. Across a wide river, was a futuristic city with flying cars and everything.

The Doctor stepped out behind her and closed the door. 'It's the year five billion and twenty three. We're in the galaxy M87; and this. . .? This is New Earth,' he said, finally getting it right this time.

'That's just. That's just….' She started to laugh as a feeling of joy overwhelmed her.

'Not bad. Not bad at all,' the Doctor said with a smile.

'That's amazing,' she said looking around at the cars flying past. 'I'll never get used to this…. Never.' She started jumping up and down. 'Different ground beneath my feet, different sky. What's that smell?' Her jumping had disturbed the ground beneath her.

He stooped down and snatched a little of the vegetation. 'Apple grass,' he said rubbing it with his fingers to release the smell.

'Apple grass,' she laughed.

'Yeah, yeah,' he laughed in agreement of the wonder of it.

She stood there grinning at him. 'It's beautiful. Oh, I love this.' She hugged his arm and went serious for a moment. 'Can I just say. . ., travelling with you. . ., I love it.'

'Me too,' he replied, and they started laughing again, and something that was becoming quite common now, they grinned at each other like idiots. 'Come on.' He grabbed her hand and ran, not from danger, not to find trouble, just for the pure joy of running.

He took his long coat off and placed it on the ground like a blanket, so that they could lie comfortably on the grass. Rose lay there, propped up on her elbows, listening to his new voice, studying his new face as he spoke.

'So, the year five billion, the sun expands, the Earth gets roasted.'

'That was our first date,' she remembered.

'We had chips,' he recalled, after they returned to Earth so that Rose could see that everything was all right. 'So anyway, planet gone, all rocks and dust, but the human race lives on, spread out across the stars. Soon as the Earth burns up, oh yeah, they get all nostalgic, big revival movement, but then find this place, same size as the Earth, same air, same orbit, lovely. Call goes out, the humans move in.'

'What's the city called?' she asked him.

'New New York.'

'Oh, come on.' She thought he was joking.

'It is. It's the city of New New York. Strictly speaking, it's the fifteenth New York since the original, so that makes it New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York.'

Rose just gazed at him in disbelief. The "old" him was never this…, light-hearted and seemingly carefree. It was as if the regeneration had removed a burden from his shoulders.

He saw her looking at him. 'What?'

'You're so different.'

'New New Doctor,' he said with a smile and a twinkle in his eyes. Actually, he thought to himself, he was new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, (new), new Doctor.

* * *

 **TARDIS Medi-Bay.**

'Hold still will you, it won't take long,' the Doctor said.

'But it tickles,' Rose giggled, as he swept a hand held device over her. 'Ooh, it's like someone's whispering something naughty in my ear,' she said in a deep, sexy voice.

'Rose. . .? That is you in there isn't it?' he asked with concern.

'Well deary, I'm sure I've seen her in here somewhere.'

'Cassandra, get out of there, right now!'

Rose collapsed into fits of laughter. 'It's me…, I'm sorry, I couldn't resist it.'

He looked quite worried. 'Rose, I could have performed a synaptic retro-fold purge then, it would have turned you into something like your mother!'

Her mouth fell open in horror. 'Oh my God, I'm sorry, I didn't realise.'

His face slowly went from stern, through mildly amused, to full on grin. 'Only joking, there's no such thing,' he laughed.

'Ooh you.' She slapped his arm playfully. 'So is there any lasting damage?'

'No, everything looks fine. You may get some vivid dreams for a while, but nothing scary.'

'Well, thank you Doctor,' she said with a cheeky smile.

They left the Medi-Bay and headed for the living room to relax in front of the television for the evening.

'Don't forget to phone your mother,' he reminded her, with a lopsided smile.

'Oh yeah, thanks.' She took out her mobile and speed dialled her mum. 'Hi Mum, it's me. What day is it there? I lose track of time in the TARDIS.'

'Hi Sweetheart, it's lovely to hear from you. It's the Tuesday Christmas Bank holiday.'

'Oh, so it's the same time for us then.'

'Can I hear EastEnders in the background?' Jackie asked.

'Yeah, we're just chillin' out in the livin' room.'

'Blimey, you've got a livin' room…, hang on, that's the same EastEnders I'm watchin', how'd ya do that then?'

'It's like the phone call Mum, the TARDIS streams the program through the Vortex.'

'I never realised you could do that, it's a proper home from home, innit. So what have you been up to?'

'Oh, we've been to this amazing planet called New Earth, in the year five billion and twenty three, where we met up with some old friends. Well, one old friend who was a face and one flap of skin who was a real bitch.'

'Five billion? Face? Flap of skin? Oh my God, do you know how crazy all that sounds?' Jackie said.

Rose laughed. 'I know; it still gives me a buzz every time.' They chatted away like mothers and daughters do all over the world, it just happened that Rose wasn't actually on the same world as her mum.

After the call, she continued to watch TV with the Doctor, when a memory from the day's events suddenly popped into her head. Cassandra had snogged the Doctor!

And she'd done it with her lips! And her tongue!

And…, it was bloody brilliant!

* * *

The next morning, Rose awoke in her room, and had a momentary loss of orientation, before she realised that she was in the TARDIS and not in the flat. The Doctor had sat in the armchair in her room and chatted to her until she had fallen asleep. She felt guilty about sleeping while he would stay awake, so he said he would tell her a bedtime story to keep her company until she dozed off. She hoped it would become a regular thing, because she loved it.

He was right about the vivid dreams, the one she recalled, was the one that had woken her up. He was also right when he said 'nothing scary', it was anything but, and she woke feeling aroused and horny.

She actually blushed when she remembered the dream, which involved the Doctor (of course), some dancing (naturally), some kissing (really?), and…, well, let's just say that's what made her blush (blimey). She needed a distraction, and so decided to try out the Olympic sized swimming pool the Doctor had told her about.

She rummaged in the bottom drawer and found her Speedo swimsuit, which was red and Mickey said made her look like a Baywatch Babe. She thought wistfully about Mickey for a moment; he'd be back at work this morning after the Christmas break. She pulled the tight swimsuit on and over her shoulders, "does he think about me?" she wondered.

She felt guilty that she was here, living the…, not jet-set lifestyle…, it would have to be the space-set lifestyle; whilst he had to labour away in a garage to make a living. She put on a towelling bathrobe, flip-flops on her feet, picked up the large bath towel that she'd remembered to pack this time, and went to find the pool.

The double glass doors opened into a room that would not be out of place in any leisure centre on Earth. She slipped the bath robe off and dropped it on a sun lounger with her towel. Dipping her toe in the water, she found it to be a very comfortable temperature, and walked to the deep end, ready to dive in.

There was a momentary flash of her vivid, erotic dream, which made her blush and shiver. Bringing her arms above her head, she dived into the water and started powering through the water. Next to gymnastics, swimming was her second favourite exercise, and she was a very strong swimmer. She was convinced that swimming at the local baths was the only thing that kept her weight under control, from all the chips that she liked to eat.

The water in the pool seemed odd, as though it wasn't as "wet" as normal water, if that made sense; it seemed more buoyant and less "clingy" than usual. It was fantastic to swim in though, and she did lap after lap, until the dream was just a dream, the emotions that it initially evoked were no longer vivid. Now, she decided, it was time for breakfast.

She climbed out of the pool, and found that she wasn't all that wet, it was that odd water again. She wiped the dampness off her skin with the towel and shrugged on the bathrobe, before heading off to the kitchen.

She decided to have some cornflakes with ice cold milk this morning, which was really refreshing. As she munched away, she noticed a piece of paper resting against the retro looking teapot, which was actually very high tech, as it kept the tea hot and fresh, as though it had just been made.

She reached over and read the note. "Tea in the pot, help yourself" it said. Rose smiled at the thought of him making tea for them both, even though she had to do that very human thing of sleeping. And thinking of "him", where was he? It was unusually quiet around here this morning. Even though the TARDIS was enormous, you could usually hear noises carrying down the corridors and hallways.

She finished her cornflakes and poured a mug of tea for herself, taking her bowl over to the sink to swill it out before putting it in the dishwasher. She had another reality check, a dishwasher; her mum had never been able to afford a dishwasher. In fact, there were a number of things her mum couldn't afford, and again, she felt a bit guilty about living it up in the TARDIS.

She took her tea back to her room to get dressed, do her hair and make-up, and then be ready for the day's adventure, what ever that may be. Blue denim jeans, pink hoodie, and white trainers seemed to be her "uniform" for adventuring, and she gave herself a grin in the mirror before going to the console room to see where the Doctor was going to take them today.

That was odd; the console room was empty, no legs sticking out from under the console while he tinkered with some unimaginably complex piece of equipment. The time rotor was silent, no grinding wheezing of time and space being bent to the TARDIS's will. There was nothing, only silence

Rose went around to the view screen and switched it on to see if she could see where the Doctor might be. The view screen showed her an ordinary living room, with yellow walls and a seventies feel to it.

'Hmm, I wasn't expecting that,' she said.

She walked around the console and started down the ramp, as the door opened and the Doctor stepped inside. He was wearing his long coat and a sad expression.

'Oh, there you are,' she said as she met him by the door. 'Are you all right?'

'What? Me, oh I'm always all right,' he said with a weak smile. 'You're up then. Did you sleep well?'

'Er, yeah…, thanks,' she said distractedly, blushing slightly at the memory of her dream. 'So, where have you been? It looks like somebody's living room on the screen.'

'Oh, you looked then? Yes, it's someone's home…, was someone's home…, well, still is someone's home…, but not the mother's, I wasn't able to save her.'

Rose reached for his hand and gave a reassuring squeeze. 'Come an' have a sit down, you can tell me about it, an' try an' make more sense this time.'

He gave her a weak smile, and they set off for the living room, dropping his coat over the coral as he went past. Rose did a quick detour into the kitchen to pick up two mugs of tea, and joined him on the sofa.

'While you were asleep, I had an alert come up on the console, an elemental shade had escaped from the Howling Halls,' he told her.

'Sounds like somethin' from Harry Potter,' Rose said with a puzzled expression.

He gave a single laugh. 'It might as well have been, they are living shadows, the stuff of legends, and nightmares, the Bogeyman, Night Terrors, there are numerous names for them.'

'What, those things are real?' Rose said, suddenly concerned.

'Oh yes, but they are safely locked up in the Howling Halls, pockets in the Void, like bubbles in reality. Unfortunately, one of the bubbles burst, and the shade appeared in that house. A woman happened to be in the way when the shade materialised, killing her instantly.'

'Oh God, that's horrible,' Rose said holding his hand again, trying to offer some comfort.

'I managed to save the rest of the family by creating a temporary holding field, and then sealing it back in the Howling.'

'Well, that's a relief. It's a shame you couldn't save the woman. . ., but everything must come to dust. . ., all things. . ., everything dies,' she said distractedly.

'What did you say?' the Doctor had heard those words before.

'Wha? I don't know, I was just sayin' it wasn't your fault, didn't you tell me that everybody dies eventually?'

He smiled at her. 'Yes, that's right, I did.'

'An' you've shown me that it's how you live, not how long that's important.'

He gave her a proud smile. 'Rose Tyler. . ., you're quite the philosopher.'

She smiled back at him. 'Thank you, I do my best.'

He suddenly switched his mood, in that unpredictable, eccentric way of his, from sad to happy. The dead woman wasn't forgotten, he never forgot the people that he failed, but the sorrow was filed away in that disciplined mind of his.

'So we're in the seventies, let's hang around for a while, soak up the atmosphere, platform shoes, and flared trousers.'

'Maybe not then,' Rose said.

'Oh, and Top of the Pops is still on the BBC, do you remember Glam Rock…, Punk?' He said eyes wide in expectation.

'Hah! Are you tellin' me you're a Punk Rocker?' Rose asked with a laugh. 'You are ain'tcha?'

'You know me, never been much on authority, bit of a rebel, I was born for Punk.'

'You know me', he'd said. Did she though, she knew very little about him. 'Tell you what, if we're goin' to the seventies, I'm dressin' the part,' she said as she stood up. 'Be right back.' She hurried out of the room, and then her head popped back around the door. '1970's, right?' she asked.

'Yep, late seventies,' he confirmed.

She thought about this. 'Right, less glam, more punk, got it,' she confirmed and disappeared.

While Rose was getting changed, the Doctor was searching through his music collection, pulling out the occasional CD that caught his eye, looking at the sleeve, and then putting it back. He then found one that took his fancy.

'That's more like it,' he said with a grin. He put the CD in his pocket and went to the console room.

'What do you think of this? Will it do?' Rose asked as she put her rucksack under the console. She was wearing a denim, dungaree mini dress, with a plum T-shirt.

The Doctor walked around the console, tinkering with an object. He cast an approving glance at his young companion. 'In the late 1970s? You'd be better off in a bin bag. Hold on, listen to this.'

He started up the CD player on the console. 'Ian Dury and the Blockheads, number one in 1979.'

'You're a punk,' she accused again as she followed him around the console.

'It's good to be a lunatic,' he sang along with the music.

'That's what you are, a big old punk with a bit of rockabilly thrown in.'

He stopped walking. 'Would you like to see him?'

'How'd you mean? In concert?'

'What else is a TARDIS for?' He continued to orbit the console again. 'I can take you to the Battle of Trafalgar, the first anti-gravity Olympics, Caesar crossing the Rubicon or Ian Dury at the Top Rank, Sheffield, England, Earth, 21st November, 1979. What do you think?' He stopped by the flight controls.

'Sheffield it is,' she said with a beaming smile.

'Hold on tight.' He flipped a lever, and the TARDIS lurched into action, causing her to hold on tight, just like he'd said. He started hitting the console with a rubber mallet, to the rhythm of 'Hit me with your rhythm stick.

'Stop!' Rose laughed, and the TARDIS suddenly did, throwing them both to the floor in a fit of laughter.

'1979. Hell of a year,' he said as he stood up and pulled Rose to her feet. 'China invades Vietnam. The Muppet Movie, love that film.' He shrugs his long coat over his shoulders. 'Margaret Thatcher. . ., urgh. Skylab falls to Earth, with a little help from me. Nearly took off my thumb.'

He stepped out of the TARDIS, still talking to Rose. 'And I like my thumb. I need my thumb. I'm very attached to….'

He hears a number of rifle hammers being pulled back and cocked.

'My thumb,' he said, raising his hands in front of a number of soldiers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

The Doctor and Rose hopped off the horse drawn cart by the TARDIS, thanked Dougal, the driver, and walked across the heath land.

'No, but the funny thing is, Queen Victoria did actually suffer a mutation of the blood. It's historical record. She was haemophiliac. They used to call it the Royal Disease. But it's always been a mystery because she didn't inherit it. Her mum didn't have it, her dad didn't have it. It came from nowhere,' the Doctor told her.

'What and you're saying that's a wolf bite?'

'Well, maybe haemophilia is just a Victorian euphemism.'

'For werewolf?'

'Could be.'

'Queen Victoria's a werewolf?'

'Could be. And her children had the Royal Disease. Maybe she gave them a quick nip.'

'So, the Royal Family are werewolves?'

'Well, maybe not yet. I mean, a single wolf cell could take a hundred years to mature. Might be ready by, oh, early 21st century?'

'Nah, that's just ridiculous!' Rose said dismissively, and then thought about the Royal Family. 'Mind you, Princess Anne….'

'I'll say no more.'

Rose thought about it some more. 'And if you think about it, they're very private. They plan everything in advance. They could schedule themselves around the moon. We'd never know. And they like hunting!' she said as they stepped into the TARDIS, she was on a roll.

'They love blood sports,' she continued as the Doctor walked up the ramp ahead of her and started the time rotor. 'Oh my God, they're werewolves!' she laughed in disbelief.

'Hah! And if they aren't at the moment, they will be,' he said with a grin.

'And you owe me a tenner,' Rose reminded him.

'Ah, now the bet was that YOU could make her say it, and if I recall correctly, which I always do, I said that her husband was protecting her from beyond the grave, and she said, 'Indeed, then you may think on this also, that I am not amused'.'

'Yeah, she said it!'

'Yes, but I made her say it, not you, and the bet was definitely for you to make her say it, so I think you'll find that the tenner is mine,' he said with a triumphant smile.

'Oh no, no, hang on,' she said thinking furiously. 'Er…, ah, I actually said, 'I want her to say we are not amused. I bet you five quid I can make her say it'. Now for you to win the bet, she would have had to NOT say it, so I think that's a draw.'

'What?' he said incredulously. 'Rose Tyler, have you been taking lessons from your mother.'

It was Rose's turn to have a satisfied grin. 'Yep, I was taught by one of the best, you have to get up really early to get one over on my Mum.'

The Doctor shook his head and laughed in resignation. 'Okay, it's a draw, where do you want to go as a consolation prize then?'

'Well, Sir Doctor, I seem to remember you promisin' to take me to see Ian Dury, so, are you takin' me to this concert or what?' Rose asked him with a cheeky grin. 'I mean, I didn't get dressed up in this 'naked' outfit for nothin'.'

'Ah, of course Dame Rose, allow me to escort my wee, naked, timorous, beastie, to an evening of musical entertainment for your delight and delectation.' He took her hand in a gentile fashion and bowed.

'Och aye, I'll be oot an' aboot kind sir,' she replied with a laugh and did a little curtsey.

The Doctor grimaced. 'Nah, still don't do it, please.'

He reset the console and started up the time rotor. 'Now, if the TARDIS doesn't interfere this time, we might be able to get to the concert.' The lights flickered in a way that could only be described as 'huffy', which caused Rose to laugh and stroke the coral strut.

'It's all right girl, the nasty man doesn't mean it.' The lights flickered again, this time in a 'thank you' kind of way.

The time rotor stopped, and the Doctor started to shut down the console. Rose walked around to the view screen, and switched it on. The Doctor gave her a questioning look.

'Just checkin' there aren't any soldiers out there with guns, or aliens with ray guns or somethin',' she told him.

He rolled his eyes and headed for the door. 'Are you comin' or what?' he said impatiently. 'We'll miss the first number if you're not careful.'

Having seen that they were in a concert hall, and with the only thing that could be considered dangerous, being a randy roadie, she ran down the ramp with her hair flying around her shoulders to take his waiting hand.

They stepped through the door into the backstage area of the Top Rank Hall in Sheffield.

'Oi…, you two…, where's yer passes?' a man in a high-vis jacket called to them. 'You need passes in this area.'

'Oh, sorry,' the Doctor said, reaching into his inside pocket. 'Here you are,' he said showing the man his psychic paper in the wallet.

'Ah, you're reporters for NME are ya? DEREK…, we need two reporter passes over here,' he shouted to a man standing at a long, trestle table. 'Go and see Derek, he'll sort you out.'

'Thank you,' Rose said with a smile, and then whispered to the Doctor. 'Reporters for New Musical Express?'

'Yeah, I know, isn't that brilliant!'

They were escorted around the edge of the stage to an area where other reporters were preparing to watch the performance, and write a commentary. From where she was standing, Rose could see some of the audience, and she could feel the waves of anticipation coming from them.

'I don't know about you, but I would love to be down there with that lot,' she told him, pointing to the crowd.

The Doctor looked around the stage, and then at the crowd and smiled. 'You're right, come on.'

He took her hand and led her into the wings, down some steps and through a door into the auditorium. A man in a high-vis jacket looked at them suspiciously, but they held up their press passes on the lanyards around their necks, and high-vis jacket man let them through. They made their way through the crowd until they were in a good position to see the stage, when the house lights went down, replaced by spot lights on the stage.

The Blockheads started to wander on and pick up their instruments, and the crowd started to cheer and applaud. There were a few random notes as the musicians checked the tuning, and then they started playing a riff from 'Hit me with your rhythm stick' over and over, which got another cheer from the crowd.

A small, unassuming man, with curly dark hair, wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt, dark glasses and white gloves, shuffled on to the stage towards the microphone. He got a deafening cheer from the crowd, and the Doctor and Rose were jumping up and down with excitement with the best of them.

'Good evening Sheffield,' he said, with an accent that was both posh, and yet rough at the same time. The crowd whistled and cheered.

'Are you ready for this?' he asked them.

'YES!' they all yelled back.

'I can't hear you,' he said in a sing song voice. 'I SAID ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?' he yelled.

'YYYEESSSS!' the crowd roared back.

He smiled and started nodding his head to the beat, waiting for the riff to come around. 'In the deserts of Sudan…. And the gardens of Japan. . .,' he started singing, and that was it, Rose and the Doctor started swaying to the beat, and never stopped. They were even pogoing to some of the songs, along with everyone else.

When the concert was finally over, Rose hugged the Doctor around the neck. 'Thank you for that, it was fantastic,' she said, realising that she'd used her 'old' Doctor's favourite expression.

'Wasn't it just,' he answered, a big grin on his face.

The adrenalin fuelled horror of an alien werewolf was forgotten, replaced by the adrenalin fuelled excitement of the concert.

'Y'know, we should do this more often,' the Doctor said.

'Too right we should,' Rose replied enthusiastically.

'And not just on this planet or in this century.'

'Whatcha got in mind?'

'Motzart, Vienna, in the eighteenth century. Balhoon opera, in the five billions, mind you, that's a bit of an acquired taste, oh, and one all day concert that changed the planet Earth, it was the first global event that brought everyone together.'

'Which century was that then?' she asked.

He gave her that 'dribbled down her T-shirt' look. 'Yours of course, 13th July 1985, at noon, in Wembley stadium, 72,000 people came together for an unprecedented event. At around two o'clock at the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 100,000 people joined them in a combined, satellite broadcast.'

Rose thought about this. '1985, I was two,' she said, and then realised what he was talking about. 'Live Aid? You mean the Live Aid concert?'

'Yep, how's about making it 72,002, and 100,002?'

Rose squealed with delight and hugged him again; he returned the hug and swung her around.

That night, Rose slept well, having been exhausted by the day's events. The Doctor had sat in her chair again and told her another tale of his adventures before he met her. She'd had another vivid dream, which involved her kissing the Doctor when he had big ears and a daft face. It was so romantic, as a soft golden light, the sort that you see in a romantic movie or an advert for chocolates surrounded them.

The next day, the Doctor took Rose to Vienna in 1874, where she enjoyed dressing in the period costume. She had been to the TARDIS clothing department, and dressed in a low cut, stiff-bodiced, blue silk mantua. She was the picture of elegance as they spent their time exploring the beautiful city.

In the evening, they made their way to the Mehlgrube restaurant, a first rate establishment, which served exquisite food. During the meal, a young couple entered the restaurant, and seemed to be very popular. The man wore a white and gold justaucorps, jacket, and breeches, whilst the woman wore a cream gown; similar in style to the one Rose was wearing.

When Rose looked at the Doctor to ask if he knew who they were, she saw a smile of anticipation on his lips. 'Who are those two then?' she asked quietly as she leaned towards him.

That Rose, is Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, and his wife Constanze, and he's going to be performing one of his concertos in the ballroom.

Rose's mouth fell open. 'Oh my God, y'mean that's him…, THE Mozart?'

'Yep, music superstar of his day, a genius. C'mon, eat up and we'll go and get a good seat.'

On their way to the ballroom, they stopped at his table. 'Mr Mozart, I'm the Doctor, and this is my companion, Rose, I'd just like to say that we're SO looking forward to your performance this evening,' the Doctor said.

Mozart stood and nodded politely. 'Than you sir, ma'am, I shall try my best to live up to your expectation.'

The Doctor gave a slight bow, and Rose bobbed a curtsey, before going through to the ballroom, and an evening of music she would never forget.

They went to Balhoon one day, and the Doctor was right, Balhoon opera was definitely an acquired taste, also, Rose ran out of saliva, what with all the spitting of approval.

At the end of the week, they found themselves on the multicultural planet of Karkinos, a busy, teeming metropolis of a planet, which was a sort of galactic Constantinople. One of the moons of Karkinos was a captured hollow asteroid, the shape of which, gave the interior outstanding acoustics, and performers from all over the galaxy came to give sell out concerts.

Today was an all day, eclectic festival of music, from a number of performers, and a variety of different styles. There was a carnival atmosphere inside the arena, and Rose had a momentary feeling of motion sickness as she entered the auditorium and looked up.

In the middle of the asteroid, was a floating stage that slowly rotated in all three planes. That was okay (sort of), but when she looked beyond that to the roof, half a kilometre away, she saw people walking about, upside down. And when you looked to the curving walls, there were people standing sideways.

There were a number of performers there, jugglers, magicians, comedians and contortionists. There were market stalls selling trinkets, official concert memorabilia, and fast food outlets providing a mind boggling range of snacks and drinks.

Young alien children were running past, holding sticks of smoking food. Rose and the Doctor were walking in the direction that the children were coming from, when they saw a small, blue alien woman, about a metre tall, with large round eyes and hair like a porcupine.

Rose smiled at the woman, who looked like she had a bout of indigestion, before she roared a belch, and flames shot out of her mouth. Rose squealed in alarm, and a number of children laughed and held up sticks of food to be cooked.

They heard many different styles of music, some rhythmic and hypnotic, others that made your teeth rattle, and others still that left you breathless, either with the sheer force of it, or the sheer beauty of it. When the festival was over, they went back to the TARDIS and the Doctor put his key in the door.

'Excuse me,' a voice called out behind them, and they turned around to see who had called them.

They both craned their necks to look up at the eight foot tall crayfish that was standing in front of them. She had six legs but only stood on four. Her segmented body was arched backwards so that her two front legs were held up and out like arms, one of them ending in a huge knobbled claw. She had a head of sorts with four black bead-like eyes, and a gaping hole in the centre of her face, filled with row upon row of tiny sharp jagged teeth, surrounded by waving feelers that seemed to claw at the air

'Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else,' the young, female Karkinian said.

The Doctor furrowed his brow. 'Ali, is that you?'

The knobbled claw clacked in suspicion, and her feelers twitched. 'Do I know you? Because I knew a man once, who owned a box like this, is he inside? He calls himself the Doctor.'

'That's me, Ali, I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose,' he said with a grin.

'Rose, Rose Tyler?' her voice was full of disbelief. 'You went back for her.'

Rose's mouth fell open. 'Wha, you know me? I think I'd have remembered meeting you before.'

'Then you really are the Doctor,' she said. 'You've changed.'

'Yep, why don't you come in and I'll tell you all about it.'

The Doctor explained to Rose how he'd met Ali after leaving her in that alley with Mickey. It was Ali that convinced him to go back and ask her again. They then told Ali about their adventures, and how the Doctor had regenerated. Rose was amazed at how this alien girl, reminded her so much of herself (when you got past the fact that she looked like a cross between a cockroach and a crayfish). She was brave, adventurous, and had a wicked sense of humour.

After catching up with everything that had happened to each other, Ali realised that her family would be looking for her, and that it was time for her to go. They said their goodbyes, and Ali left, calling to her parents and siblings, who they could see standing on a wall across the arena. The Karkinians stood and watched as the magical blue box slowly disappeared.

Rose awoke one morning and padded into the kitchen in her pyjamas to prepare breakfast, only to find waffles waiting for her, along with a jar of maple syrup. The Doctor was putting a large picnic together for them that fitted into a shoulder bag that was far too small for it all.

'That'sh an awful lot of food,' Rose said through a mouthful of waffle.

'Well, we are going to a sixteen hour concert; we might get a bit peckish.'

'Wha? y'mean we're doin' Live Aid today?' she asked with excitement. 'What should I wear?'

'It's hot and sunny, so something summery.'

'Right, shorts, and vest top,' she said, as she finished the waffles and went back to her room to get dressed. Whilst she was fastening her bra behind her, her mobile phone rang on the bedside table. She walked around the bed and looked at the display. It said 'Mickey'.

'Hiya Mickey. Howya doin'?' she said cheerfully, always happy to speak to her old friend.

'Rose Babe, it's good to hear your voice. I was just callin' to ask when you would be comin' home, cus I've got somethin' amazing' to show you,' he said excitedly.

'Well, we're goin' to be busy for a coupl'a days, but after that we can come back. Why, what have you found?'

'Oh, I can't tell ya, you won't believe it unless you see it,' he said mysteriously.

'Ooh, you tease. Okay, I've got to finish gettin' dressed so I'll see ya in a coupl'a days.'

'Okay, see ya soon Babe. Bye.'

When she came into the console room, she was wearing denim shorts, white trainers, and a white vest top. The Doctor was wearing his blue, pinstriped trousers, red converse, and a dark blue T-shirt; it was one of those rare occasions where he wasn't wearing a shirt and jacket.

The TARDIS landed in a staff area of Wembley Arena, where they could mix with the crowds, and make their way into the arena, where the Coldstream Guards band where opening with the 'Royal Salute' of, 'God Save the Queen'.

The irony of this wasn't lost on the Doctor and Rose, who had just been knighted (and exiled), and laughed when they looked at each other. But they sang along with the rest of the audience, cheering and applauding when the band finished.

They then watched Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Alan Lancaster, and Pete Kircher walk on stage and start playing.

'Ah here we are and here we are and here we go-o-oh, all aboard and we're hitting the road, here we go-oh, rockin' all over the world.'

'Oh, this is unbelievable,' Rose, said, beaming a smile at him. It was the start of sixteen hours of partying. At ten o'clock, the Wembley concert ended with Band Aid and 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' which in the middle of a hot July night, was an odd question. They made their way to the TARDIS to have supper in the kitchen before jumping over to the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, to catch Hall and Oates performing their set.

After watching rock royalty perform their pieces, it came time for USA for Africa to sing 'We Are the World', to end the 'Live Aid' phenomenon. Hand in hand, the Doctor and Rose slowly made their way back to the TARDIS, exhausted after their marathon concert.

'Y'know, I feel a bit guilty about not buyin' a ticket. I mean, the whole thing was to help people who are starvin',' Rose said, resting her weary head on his shoulder.

'Don't be, we've saved the planet on more than one occasion, and will probably save it again in the future. I think two tickets out of 172,000 is payment for all our hard work.'

'Mmmm, I suppose when you look at it like that….'

The Doctor put the key in the lock and opened the door for Rose to enter. He followed her up the ramp, past the console and into the corridor beyond. Rose went past the kitchen and straight to her bedroom door.

'If ya don't mind, I'm goin' straight to bed,' she said.

'No, I'm going to bed myself, so I'll see you in the morning.'

'Oh, right,' she said, surprised by his admission that he needed sleep, and disappointed that he wasn't going to tell her a story. 'Thanks again for a brilliant day. Goodnight.'

Lying in bed, Rose was thinking about the last few days. She had found out a lot about the Doctor's musical tastes, and she hoped that she would soon find out more about the man she loved to travel with, the man she loved to be with, the man she loved. . ..


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

 **British** **Museum,**

 **Great Russell Street, London.**

 **March 2007.**

Mickey led Rose, and Jackie, past rows of carved Roman heads, hundreds of sightless eyes watching their progress, never hesitating, as if he knew the way by heart. They had lost the Doctor in the Egyptian gallery, examining the Rosetta Stone. Mickey had phoned Rose when he first found it, and had kept returning while he'd waited for her and the Doctor to come and see it.

They passed some sarcophagi, and a giant stone foot that seemed almost too 'Monty Python' to be in such a serious place as a museum. Then they came to a row of statues, sculpted human forms, some headless, some armless, but all possessed of a shining white dignity despite their misfortunes.

Mickey stopped. 'There you are,' he said. He was grinning, like a dog who'd just fetched her a stick and was waiting for a grateful response. Rose looked at the statue in front of her, a marble priestess with a veil. It was lovely, but not all that exciting.

Then Jackie gasped. 'Oh, my God. I don't believe it!'

Rose transferred her gaze to the next sculpture along. And she gasped too. It was a perfect stone replica – of herself.

And, according to its sign, it was nearly 2,000 years old. Once she had recovered from the initial shock, she got quite excited. 'That's brilliant!' she said. 'You realise what this means? We must be off to…' she checked, 'second-century Rome. How brilliant is that?'

'Blimey,' said a voice from behind. 'Reminds me of a girl I once knew. Wonder whatever happened to her.' The Doctor had caught up with them and he gave Rose a smile that could probably melt even a marble statue. She grinned at him.

Jackie was reading the sign under the sculpture. 'Here, it says it's a statue of the goddess Fortuna,' she said. 'Don't tell me I've given birth to a god. Howard'll never believe it.'

 **Rome** **, Italy**

 **120 AD.**

The Doctor and Rose sat in a grove outside the villa owned by the old Roman called Gracilis. The sun sparkled across the pond, throwing glitter ball reflections across the white marble of Rose's statue. The Doctor petted a peacock, which made a mewing noise like a cat. He mewed back at it.

They'd been sitting alone for a while when Gracilis joined them again. He begged their pardon, but he wanted to ask them something.

'That girl, Vanessa,' he said. 'She was a true reader of the stars, wasn't she?' He was referring to a young woman who had been transported to ancient Rome by a GENIE (Genetically Engineered Neural Imagination Engine), whose purpose was to grant all wishes it hears.

Rose wasn't sure what to say, but the Doctor nodded. 'I suppose you could say that.'

Gracilis was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then he continued, 'I think she was sent by the gods to aid us. And I think you too were sent by the gods.'

Rose laughed. 'No, really, we weren't. Honest.'

'In that case,' Gracilis said, looking at the statue, 'you must be gods yourselves.'

'No, we're not!' Rose began, but Gracilis had risen and was moving off.

'I will honour you all my life,' he said.

'Gracilis!' Rose had suddenly thought of something.

He stopped and turned back. 'Yes, my lady?'

'Just…, no sacrifices, OK?'

Gracilis smiled and bowed.

 **Turin** **, Italy** **.**

 **1849 years later.**

'Okay, so why are we in Turin in the late 1960's,' Rose asked the Doctor, having only just got back from 120's Rome.

'An' why are we lookin' like a business man and his secretary?' Rose asked him. She was wearing an orange, two piece suit of a jacket and knee length skirt, and black shoes, and the Doctor was wearing a light grey suit with a white, open necked shirt and black shoes.

'You'll see,' he said mysteriously. 'Just keep your eyes open and I think you might recognise some people. . ., and some cars,' he said, without trying to give too much away.

A man with a clipboard had directed them to a table next to a magazine stand, outside a restaurant in the Galleria San Federico, which Rose thought was a bit odd, but put it down to how the Italians did things around here. She noticed that there were a number of areas roped off, and was that a film crew down at the end of the Galleria?

She was just about to ask the Doctor what was going on, when she heard the roar of three car engines echoing in the covered Galleria. The Doctor gave her an excited grin, before turning around to look at a red Mini Cooper speeding down the pedestrian Galleria, with a white and blue Mini, close on its tail.

They leapt to their feet and stood back as the cars drove past, and took the corner to their left.

'What the…,' Rose said as they sped by.

'CUT!' someone shouted at the end of the Galleria. 'That's a wrap, thank you everybody.'

Rose laughed. 'Oh my God, have we just been in…?'

'The Italian Job? Yep. 'You're only supposed to…,' he started to say.

'. . .. Blow the bloody doors off,' she finished with laughter.

'It's a classic, one of the best car chase sequences ever filmed,' he said with a grin. 'And one of my favourites.'

'I don't believe it…, the Italian Job, THE Italian Job…. I'm in the Italian Job,' she said, trying to comprehend it all. 'So is this a change of timeline events thing, or have I always been in the film?'

'Er, nope…, and yep,' he said cheekily.

'So all the years that I've watched that film, I've been watchin' myself?'

'Yep, and me of course,' he reminded her.

She grabbed his hand. 'C'mon, you're gonna show me in the TARDIS.' She needed to watch the film and see if she could spot them.

In the TARDIS living room, they watched the film on the large, wall mounted TV, drinking Coke, and eating popcorn, as though they were on a date in a cinema.

'Here it comes,' the Doctor said. 'Get ready…, there!'

Rose squealed with laughter, hit the rewind, and watched it again…, and again…, and in slow motion. 'That is unbelievable; I've watched that film with Mum loads of times and never spotted that before.'

'Why would y…, hang on, your mum?'

'Yeah, it's one of her favourite films.'

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. 'Blimey, who'd have thought it, me, and your mum having something in common?'

Rose rolled her eyes at him and gave him her teasing, tongue through the teeth smile. 'You already have…, me.'

They watched the end of the film where Michael Caine says, 'Hang on lads…, I've got a great idea', and Rose looked at the Doctor. 'Can you take me home?' she asked him. 'I've just got to show Mum this.'

He smiled at her. 'Yeah, okay.' Any chance to show off to Jackie Tyler.

 **48 Bucknall House.**

 **Powell Estate, Peckham.**

 **April 2007.**

Jackie Tyler went into the kitchen of her flat, and glanced at the grainy picture of her daughter's statue, which was sellotaped to a cupboard. It was a shame they didn't do a proper postcard of it, but Mickey had taken a photo on his phone and had it blown up for her, and that was better than nothing. Her daughter. Her beautiful daughter, Rose.

Jackie started singing to herself as she opened the cupboard to get out a microwave meal for one, when her phone started ringing; the caller display said 'Rose'. Her daughter was in the TARDIS, and was calling to tell her that she was coming home, and that she'd got something to show her.

* * *

Rose let herself into the flat with her key and dropped her rucksack of dirty washing in the hallway. 'Mum, we're back,' she called out.

'Oh Sweetheart, I was so pleased when you phoned and said you were comin'.' She hugged Rose and gave her a kiss on the cheek. 'All that travellin' seems to agree with ya, yer look great. How was ancient Rome, did ya find the bloke who did yer statue? Have ya been havin' a good time, 'as he been keepin' yer outta danger?' she rattled on, giving the Doctor a questioning look.

'We've been havin' a great time Mum, that's partly why we're here,' she replied, moving into the living room where Mickey was waiting for her.

'Hello Babe,' Mickey said, unsure of the reaction he'd get. Jackie had called him soon after Rose had phoned, to tell him that she was coming home.

Rose saw the uncertainty in his expression, and felt guilty that she'd reduced him to this. They may no longer be a couple, but they were still best mates.

Rose went over and gave him a big, reassuring hug. 'Hiya Mickey, how are ya?'

'I'm good thanks, you look pretty good yerself.'

The Doctor squeezed past Jackie, who was still giving him a disapproving look (although it wasn't as hostile as it used to be), and sat down on the sofa.

'So Sweetheart, what was it that you wanted to show me, you sounded all excited on the phone.' Jackie was scanning her finger looking for a tell tale engagement ring.

'Oh, you are gonna love this, it's been under our noses for years. Have ya still got the video with 'The Italian Job' on it?'

Jackie mentally breathed a sigh of relief, no alien wedding then, but then became puzzled by her question. 'Er, yeah, it's in the draw under the video,' she told her.

'Great, we want to show you somethin' in the film,' she said as she rummaged on her hands and knees in the draw. She found one labelled, 'Rose - Dirty Dancing', and another, 'Mum - Cliff in Concert - DO NOT ERASE'. She then found the one she was looking for, 'Mum - Italian Job - DO NOT ERASE'.

She put it in the video and pressed play.

'If we're watchin' a film, I'll get some beers out the fridge,' Mickey said, and went into the kitchen.

'Ooh, reach some of the crisps, Doritos, and those cheesy nibble things as well Love,' Jackie called through the serving hatch. Mickey came back with a four pack of beer that he kept in Jackie's fridge for when he called around to see her and catch up on any news from Rose.

They watched the film, singing 'we're the self preservation society', each time the tune was played. They got to the part where the Mini Coopers were loaded with the gold bullion in the Palazzo Madama and driven away.

'It's comin' up,' Rose told them. 'Watch closely.'

The cars drove along the Palazzo Carignano down the steps, and along the Galleria dell'Industria.

'Here it comes,' Rose said excitedly.

One minute and ten seconds into the chase, the cars sped down the Galleria San Federico, the red Mini leading the way. Before it turned left, a couple on the right of the screen stood up and let the cars zoom past.

'THERE! Did you see it?' Rose asked.

'See what? Mickey asked.

'Oh my God,' Jackie said, she'd spotted the pair of them as the Mini shot past them. She used the remote to search back and play it frame by frame. 'Is that really you?' she asked.

'Wha? That's you innit?' Mickey asked, open mouthed.

'Nah, it's Rose all right,' Jackie said. 'But the bloke in the film's got nicely combed hair.'

'Oi, in the room,' the Doctor said.

'Well, look at that bird's nest on yer head,' she said with a smirk.

'Mum!' Rose said in his defence.

'So you actually went back to when they were makin it, and got yerself in the film?' Mickey said.

'Yeah,' they both said together, nodding their heads enthusiastically.

'An' you've always been in it then?'

'Yeah.'

'Bloody 'ell,' is all he could manage to say, as he tried to get his head around it.

They finished watching the film as Rose told them about Turin, and how they'd gone to look at the film locations. She also told them about the last time they had seen her in the British Museum, when Mickey had found the statue Fortuna, which had been modelled on her.

She laughed when she told them that it was the Doctor who had sculpted the statue from memory, leaving Mickey completely gob smacked. Jackie on the other hand, being her mum and having seen the detail in the statue, was concerned that he knew her body in that much detail. Eventually, all the beer and the nibbles were gone, and Jackie looked over at Rose.

'Will you be stayin' over tonight you two?' she asked them, in a way that said 'please stay for a bit longer'.

Rose looked over at the Doctor. 'I'll ask the designated driver.'

The Doctor smiled at her. 'Yeah, go on then.' He knew that they needed some mother and daughter time together.

"The spare rooms yours if you want it," Jackie said.

'Ooh, that'll bring back some memories,' the Doctor said with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows, remembering last Christmas when he had regenerated.

'Brilliant! An' in the mornin' I can phone some of my old mates and arrange a get together," Rose said enthusiastically. It had been a while since she had seen the old crowd, and she had a bit of catching up to do.

'I don't think Keisha will be up to going out with ya," Jackie said.

'Really, why not?' Rose asked. Keisha was always up for a night out. She was one of her wildest, loudest and craziest mates.

'Oh, you didn't hear about her brother, did ya?' her mother said, a sad look on her face. 'He was lost at sea when his ship went down with all hands. She's in bits about it.'

'Oh my God… not Jay?' Rose was shocked by the news. She'd had a school girl crush on Jay Selby when she was fourteen, and had shyly had a dance with him at the end of term disco before he left to join the navy. It was when he left school that she started hanging out with Mickey.

The Doctor gave them an enquiring look, and Jackie explained. 'Jay was an old school friend of Rose's. He joined the navy when he left school. His ship sank a few months ago with all hands lost.'

'Oof. That's a bit of hard luck," the Doctor said in sympathy.

'I'll have to go an' see her," Rose said. 'Do you mind?' she asked the Doctor hesitantly. She knew he didn't like these domestic situations.

'No,' he lied. 'I'll come along. A bit of moral support as they say.'

* * *

'I'm so sorry, Keish.' Rose sat on the threadbare sofa and held her old mate close. She couldn't think of anything to say that didn't sound useless and hollow, but she kept trying. 'I'm really, really sorry. When Mum told me, I just. . . Well, it's so hard to take in.'

Keisha sniffed noisily and pulled away. She was one of Rose's old clubbing crowd, wildest and loudest and craziest of the lot. She looked totally gorgeous when she was glammed lip. But right now her black curls were ratted and her light brown skin was snail-trailed with snot and tears.

'Jay was my brother,' she murmured. 'And now. . . he's just gone.'

There was a picture of him on the cheap Ikea sideboard – a big, grinning, burly boy. The chipped, imitation pine looked too thin to support such a warm and healthy figure.

'Have they told your mum? The navy, I mean.'

'Doubt it. Got no address for her, no phone number. . . She wouldn't care anyway. Got her other family now.'

'Yeah, but she still. . . I mean, she must. . . ' Again, Rose found herself trailing off. This wasn't helping.

Keisha wiped her nose on a sodden tissue. "Missing in action," they told me. Yeah, right. His ship's been towed up the Thames in, like, a million bits. Why can't they just own up that he's been killed and they can't find enough of him to send back home?'

'Keish, there's always a chance –'

'It's been three months now, and nothing. Nothing left of anyone on that ship.'

Rose felt so weird inside. She'd had a crush on Jay when she was fourteen. That was five years ago and, daft though it was, she'd never really been able to talk to him properly since. Now she never would, and it didn't seem real. So much had happened in her own life since then… She'd seen so much death in so many far-flung times and places, she was sort of hardened to it. Now someone from her old life here in London was never coming back, and Keisha was showing her the repercussions up close and personal. Rose found she had no idea how to relate to it.

The Doctor was being no help at all of course. He just stood there, staring out of the window. She wasn't sure if he was sulking because she'd dragged him along here today, or if he was actually just enjoying the grey concrete view of the surrounding high-rises from here on the third floor. Who could tell? She'd known him for ages now, but still she couldn't always read his moods.

'Who's your mate?' Keisha whispered, wiping her nose.

Rose shut her eyes. "A 900-year-old alien, actually. He lives in a police box that's really a spaceship called the TARDIS and we fight monsters and save planets. It's brilliant, you should try it". Maybe not, she decided. 'He's just the Doctor.'

Keisha shot her a suspicious look. 'I don't need a doctor.'

'Not that sort of doctor, Keish, he's. . . Well, he's. . . ' Rose floundered, looked over at him in his brown pinstripe suit and grubby converse, hoping for inspiration. 'He's sort of like those disk doctors down the big PC shops. Good with computers and that.'

'Oh.' Keisha nodded, apparently satisfied. 'You met him when you went away that time, yeah?'

'Kind of.'

'Suppose you must have met all sorts, living abroad for a year. . . while your poor old mates left behind were worried sick.'

Rose caught the disapproval behind the smile. 'We thought that loser Mickey had topped you or something.'

'Long time ago now.' Rose hid behind a rueful smile, ringing inside. When she'd first gone off into space and time, the Doctor claimed he could bring her back to Earth the day after she'd left. But he'd messed up. They'd come back a whole twelve months later.

'You could have told us you were going.' Keisha nudged her. 'Better yet, could have taken us with you! And you've been back in the country for months and months, ain't you? Where've you been? It ain't been the same round here without you, babes. I've really missed you.'

'It's good to see you too,' Rose said. 'I'm just sorry it took. . . something like this to put my bum in gear and make me get my act together.'

'S'all right. Nothing really lasts, does it?' Keisha shrugged, staring into space again. 'Friendships. . . family. . . '

Rose shook her head. 'Hey, come on, Keish. Look, I'm gonna be around for a few days –'

'A few days!' The Doctor snapped into life, whirled round, gave her a look as sharp as his angular features. Then he realised Keisha was watching him and his face softened. He started nodding. 'Yeah. A few days, course we are. Thought so.'

When Keisha looked away he grimaced and mouthed at Rose, 'A few days?'

Rose gave him an "and your problem is. . . ?" look back, then squeezed Keisha's hand. 'So anyway, I'll be around. A proper mate. We can do stuff – go out, or. . . maybe just stay in, yeah? Watch videos or something.'

'What did Jay do in the navy?' the Doctor asked abruptly, trying to interact with the grieving friends.

Keisha gave him a startled blink. 'He did something in the ships stores… spare parts and stuff.'

'Naval Stores Sub Department.' The Doctor wore a proper boy's smile. 'Oh, that's a brilliant job. There are 42,000 spare parts on your average frigate – think what you could make with that lot! And they call those stores assistants Jack Dusties, don't they? Why is that?'

Rose realised that it was his very alien attempt to try and lighten the mood, and although she loved him for it, it wasn't really appropriate.

'Imagine if your name was Jack Dusty and you became a Jack Dusty! And then if Jack Dusty the Jack Dusty went to the planet Jacdusta in the Dustijek nebula and joined their navy, he could…'' He stopped, realising that Keisha was staring at him as though he had two heads or something.

That stare wasn't too bad really. It was the glare that Rose was giving him that was bad. It was her "pack it in glare", and he reckoned on the "Rose Tyler Glare-ometer" scale, he was probably hitting an eleven right about now.

He couldn't help it of course. If Rose was feeling awkward after only a couple of years of travelling with him, imagine what nine hundred years of it would do to her. Well, not nine hundred, humans didn't live that long. Maybe ninety, if you were lucky. Well. . .

'Chips!' he said suddenly as a distraction. 'Chips would be good now. Who wants chips?'

'Sounds great,' said Rose quickly. She pressed a fiver into his hand, in case he tried to pay with a twenty-zarg note or something. 'The Chinese round the corner does them good and greasy.'

'In foil trays, I suppose?' The Doctor looked suddenly crestfallen.

'You know, chips have never tasted the same since they stopped wrapping them in newspaper. I liked them in newspaper.'

'Well, there's a newsagent's next door. Buy a paper with the change on your way back!'

He perked up. 'Good thinking. Yeah, nice one. OK! Back in a

minute.' He picked his way through the clutter in the poky flat to the front door and slammed it closed behind him.

Rose could relax at last. 'Sorry. Sometimes he gets a bit. . . '

'Fruit-loops?'

'Hyper.'

Keisha nodded. 'He's cute, anyway. Not really like your mum described, though.'

Rose smiled to herself. 'You could say he's pretty Indescribable, yeah.'

They sat in silence for a while, the atmosphere lightened a little by the Doctor's odd outburst. It was while they were sitting there, trying to think of what to say, when the wet ghost of Jay Selby appeared in the corner of the room.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Rose tentatively fingered the healing remnants of the gills on her cheeks and neck as she contemplated how a visit to a grieving friend, ended up with her being a host for millions of alien fish eggs, and the Doctor foiling an alien invasion. They had called themselves the Waterhive, and the Doctor had averted the "feast of the drowned", where all the infected people would be consumed by the aquatic alien life forms.

She shuddered at the thought of it, having seen that sort of thing on the Discovery channel. "All things bright and beautiful", the hymn went; what it didn't say was that the Lord God also made all the things that were dark and ugly as well.

The Doctor was all for clearing off as soon as possible (as usual), but Rose wasn't going anywhere until she knew the people she loved were safe. Luckily (for her nerves and his attention span), the news came sooner rather than later.

They were down in the gigantic labs under Aldgate Tube Station, where the remnants of the HMS Ascendant had been brought, complete with the alien infestation. The soaked, baffled, and frightened victims of the Waterhive, were being helped out of the drainage pit and the darkness. It had been a bit of a scramble, but everyone had got out alive.

Vida Swann was an oceanographer with the European Office of Oceanic Research and Development, and had been using newly developed tracers to analyse the sea's constituent elements over time. The tracers were tiny organic transmitters and receivers made up of subatomic filaments in an aqueous base. Fortunately, these tracers transmitted a signal which interfered with the Waterhive queens mind control signal, and had been instrumental in helping the Doctor defeat the Waterhive.

Vita had just found her boss Andrew Dolan, and the two were enjoying a tearful reunion that bordered on the indecent.

'Good workin' relationship?' Rose observed with her cheeky, tongue between the teeth smile.

Mickey looked at her shyly. 'Proper hug sounds good after all this.'

'Does it?' She glanced round to check on the Doctor. He was standing alone in the wrecked laboratory, his back to them all. 'Well. Professor Huntley's got a good grip. Try him,' she said a bit too sharply. She was still hurt by Keisha's revelation that she had slept with him.

'Funny.'

'I mean it!'

Vida led Andrew over by the hand. He looked to be in a bit of a daze, but Rose saw that his gill scars were healing even faster than her own.

Huntley was moving between bedraggled groups of survivors, giving the plainest explanations he could manage and trying to help. 'I've never met so many people in my life,' he said, all puffed up and proud.

'Plenty more where they came from above ground,' said Vida, leading Andrew over by the hand. He looked to be in a bit of a daze, but Rose saw his scars were healing even faster than her own. 'Now I'd better get this one to a hospital and catch up with Kelper. There's a hell of a mess to clean up.'

"That's a cue to leave if ever I heard one", Rose thought to herself.

'Will you and the Doctor be sticking around?' Vida asked her.

Rose wrinkled her nose. 'Not really our style.'

'Aha. Well, I won't ask where you'll be going,' Vida said.

'We don't even know ourselves," Rose confessed.

'But wherever it is – don't drink the water.' She smiled, blew Rose and Mickey a kiss and walked away, Andrew trailing behind her.

'You don't have to go yet, do you?' Mickey said.

Rose didn't answer.

Mickey took a step closer. 'Nothing happened with Keisha,' he said.

She looked away. 'It's all right. It was all ages ago, anyway.'

'I mean it. Stay and you can ask her!' Keisha had confessed to him that even when she had gotten him blind drunk, she still couldn't seduce him. He was still loyal to Rose, and that had made her angry, which is why she started spreading the malicious gossip that he was responsible for her disappearance.

'I don't need to ask her,' Rose said kindly. She knew Mickey, knew what kind of a bloke he was. He'd come running to Cardiff that time, when he thought they would be getting back together again. And when she was trying to get the TARDIS to take her back to Satellite Five, she told him that there was nothing for her back on the estate, he still stood by her.

She felt pangs of guilt and remorse about the way she had treated him in the past. She had been wooed by the boyish charms of Jimmy Stone and the promise of a rock star lifestyle. And then she had been wooed by the promise of travelling through the whole of time and space. She didn't deserve someone like Mickey, and he certainly deserved someone better than her.

'Nothing went on! I was so cut up about you going that –'

'Good choice of words, cut up,' she said, touching her scars. 'Like it.'

'Will you just listen?'

'Honest, Mickey, it's all right.' She half-smiled. 'Today I was drowned and turned into a fish. Sort of puts things in perspective a bit.'

Mickey shook his head sadly. 'So even the bad stuff that happens when the Doctor's around wins out over you and me?'

She put a hand on his still damp chest. 'I believe you, OK? And I'm sorry for what I put everybody through. How it changed everything so fast. You and me, we were different people then. And though we'll go on changing. . .'

He nodded. 'Maybe some things can stay the same.'

His damp arms were just slipping round her damp waist for a close hug when her mobile started to trill, despite the total soaking it had received. That was the Doctor's jiggery-pokery for you. Just as well, since with all that tampering, the warranty must be royally stuffed.

'Some things will always stay the same,' groaned Mickey. 'That'll be your mum!' And he was right of course.

She was calling from a box. 'You all right, sweetheart? I've been queuing for this phone for an hour. An hour! We've been so worried, Rose, me and Keisha. You've been driving us out of our minds, you have. So are you all right?'

'I'm fine,' Rose insisted, 'so's Mickey. So's himself.' _I think_.

The Doctor was still standing well apart from the others.

'What about you, Mum, you OK? Where are you?'

'Down the embankment. We've got the Red Cross, Sally Army, coppers taking our names. It's crazy. Oh, and I met this gorgeous man on the river! Most people were in a bit of a daze, but me and him, we were so excited we ended up dancing this fandango, right across the Thames! He's a lovely mover –'

'Is Keish all right?' she interrupted. 'Is she there?'

'She's with Jay. They're catching up. But you wouldn't believe the state of him.'

Oh, yes, I would. 'He helped save us, Mum. He was brilliant.'

'Well, the navy doctors will be getting to him soon,' Jackie went on. 'They'll look after their own, won't they? Oh, hang on, I've run out of change. These things eat money! Will I see you, sweetheart? See you soon, I mean?'

The phone clicked as she was disconnected. 'Yeah, Mum,' Rose whispered. 'See you soon.' She switched off her mobile and glanced over at the Doctor. he was facing her now. Converse wet through, suit dishevelled, his great hair all over the place. . . and he was giving her THAT smile, the one that gave her butterflies in her stomach.

It was time to go she realised.

She looked back at Mickey. 'I'll be back again. In about ten minutes probably, just you wait.'

And though neither of them really believed it, they smiled and nodded like it was true. She pressed a kiss against his cheek, waved to Vida and the others, then turned and walked slowly away, squelching and texting Keisha as she went.

"Wotever you do, b happy. C u soon. Love r xx".

She reached the Doctor and he raised his eyebrows at her. 'Finished?'

'Not quite,' she said distractedly.

"P.S. Big hugs to your gorgeous bruv". She pressed send, and then switched off the phone. That was it now, no more pretending to be au pairing in France or back packing in the Far East. One of her friends knew the truth, and that friend could keep a secret like a sieve could hold water.

She would keep quiet until it became physically painful for her, and then she would be down the pub telling everyone and dragging Mickey into the tale for him to confirm the story.

Rose smiled at the thought, and then remembered something from their childhood. 'Y'know there was this bloke who used to scare Keisha and me when we were kids,' Rose started to tell him. 'Old Scary we called him. He used to go around shouting stuff in this 'orrible voice. All sorts of things, he even made the nice things sound frightenin'. I'd hear him from my room sometimes. I'd hide under the covers and listen to him goin' on all night.'

She had a far away look in her eyes as she cast back her mind, and then turned to look into the Doctor's deep, timeless eyes. 'Many waters cannot quench love. . . That's one he came out with a lot. Neither can the floods drown it. . .'

'And?' the Doctor prompted, wondering where her reminiscing was heading.

Rose gave him a shrug, not sure herself. 'Maybe he really wasn't so scary after all.'

'You want scary?' The Doctor took her hand. 'I'll show you scary. On the planet Jack Dusty, in the Dusty Jack nebula, the chips cost a tenner a portion. And they don't even come in a newspaper.'

Together they walked away, new adventures were waiting, but first of all they had to get back to the Powell Estate. They made their way up to Aldgate Tube Station, and Rose bought two tickets to Queens Road, Peckham. From there, it was a short walk to the Powell Estate.

'God, I need a bath,' Rose said, lifting an arm and sniffing her arm pit as she walked up the ramp to the console.

'Well, I didn't like to say anything, but I don't think those people on the tube gave up their seats for you to be polite," he said with a cheeky smile.

'And look at my hair,' she complained, inspecting the blonde rats tails with her fingers. 'I'll see you in a coupla hours.'

A short while later, her head broke the surface through a thick carpet of fragrant bubbles with a contented sigh. She went over the days traumatic events, and the TARDIS soothed those memories as she did so, dampening the emotional content so that she wouldn't have nightmares.

She lazily reached over to her phone, and dialled her mum's number.

''Ello?' Jackie said.

'You made it home all right then?'

'Sweetheart! Yeah, it took ages. The whole of London was gridlocked. Where are you then?'

'Havin' a soak in the bath. Tryin' to get the stink of the Thames out of me nostrils.'

'Yeah, I've got the heater on to do the same… Rose, about your face…' Rose instinctively touched the lines on her cheek. 'When I saw that ghost of you in the lorry, your eyes were all pearly, and you had cuts in your cheeks.'

'I must have looked a right state,' Rose said with a laugh. 'It's all cleared up now Mum,' she lied. There was no point upsetting her more than she already was.

'That's a relief Sweetheart. I couldn't bear to think of you lookin' like that for the rest of your life.'

'No, I'm fine Mum. Look, we're gonna travel about a bit, let things settle down there, and then I'll be home. Okay?'

'Okay. Take care. I love you.'

'Love you too Mum. Bye.'

A "coupla" hours later, Rose wandered into the kitchen wearing a pale blue bath robe, and a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. She was rubbing moisturiser into the gill marks on her cheeks and her neck. The Doctor noticed that she had a worried look on her face.

'Feeling better?' he asked as he put a mug of tea in front of her.

'Yeah, much better thanks.'

'So, why the long face?'

'Well, I was just wonderin' about these marks… I'm gonna be scarred for the rest of my life, aren't I?'

'Oh, is that all?' he said cheerily. 'Nah, your cells are still reversing the effects of the anti-cellularisation. The tissues are repairing themselves from the inside out; the insides of your throat and cheeks will be perfectly smooth now.'

She breathed a sigh of relief. 'That's all right then.'

'Yep, after a good nights sleep, you'll wake up as beautiful as you've always been,' he said with a look that conveyed the sincerity of what he was saying.

Rose saw the look, and for some reason it made her blush. She thought about the statue of the goddess Fortuna that he had sculpted from memory, how he had captured her essence, her soul. In fact, you could say it was a labour of. . . love.

'For a human?' she said teasingly, trying to make light of that last thought.

'Ah, yeah, right… sorry about that,' he said sheepishly, pulling his earlobe.

She laughed and gave him her tongue between the teeth smile before having another sip of her tea. They chatted about the Waterhive, and he explained how he had let the queen into his mind so that he could use her thought wavelengths to activate the micro transmitters in the tracers and so destroy the hive mind.

After he finished his explanation, Rose gave a big yawn and covered her mouth. 'Ooh, sorry about that.'

'It looks like someone needs their beauty sleep.' He stood up and held out his hand for her. 'C'mon, off to bed and I'll tell you a tale of the Court of King John of England at the castle of Sir Ranulf Fitzwilliam in 1215.'

'Ooh, is it all knights in white armour, noble steeds and jousting?' she asked excitedly. She loved his bed time stories; it was a way of finding out more about his incredible past.

'Nah, more evil Time Lords, sophisticated robots, and a plot to rob the world of Magna Carta and the foundation of parliamentary democracy.'

'Oh, pretty normal day for you then,' she said as hand in hand, they wandered out of the kitchen.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Rose awoke sleepily the next morning and stretched her arms above her head with a yawn. She then remembered that she had a date with a mirror, and threw the covers back, hurrying over to the dressing table. A broad smile spread across her face as she turned her head left and right, before raising her chin. The gill marks had completely disappeared.

'Yes!' she exclaimed, performing a fist pull in triumph. The Doctor had been right; he'd said the marks would disappear. He'd also said she was beautiful, and she remembered again about how he'd looked at her.

She rummaged in a draw and found a blue T-shirt with a trendy logo on it, to wear with her denim skirt. She pulled on a pair of dark tights, and zipped up her black boots. After doing her hair, putting some lippy on, and putting her denim jacket on, she went to find the Doctor and get some breakfast.

The Doctor wasn't in the kitchen, but she stopped off and had a bowl of cereal, before resuming her search for him. Well, search was over stating it a bit, because she knew exactly where he'd be. Whilst she was eating her breakfast, she could feel the TARDIS in the back of her mind, and it felt as though she was fretting and nauseous.

She made two mugs of tea, and the lights started to dim and flicker. "What's he doin' now?" she thought to herself. "Typical bloke, always tinkerin' with stuff." She made her way to the console room to see what he was up to.

The only constant light was shining up from beneath the floor plates. A pale yellow glow that tinged the air like faint mist and made the Doctor's face look shadowed and angular as the main lights flickered and flashed apparently at random.

'So what's going on?' Rose asked.

'Going on? It's all going completely mad. Every sprocket and wocket and mergin-nut. Mad, mad, mad.' He slammed a lever across as if to show how it made no sense at all. The light was fading, the Doctor's face getting darker. Then, abruptly, it glared into brilliance, making both the Doctor and Rose screw up their eyes.

'Time for a service?' Rose suggested. She wasn't worried. Not really. Not yet. Whatever the problem was, the Doctor would fix it soon enough. Probably. 'Should have got a ten-million-mile service back on New Earth.'

'I dunno, you materialise for a split second in real space-time to take a bearing and see what happens?' The Doctor was shaking his head, clicking his tongue, moving quickly round the console. 'What's the scanner say?'

Rose glanced at the screen. 'Sort of whirly stuff.'

The Doctor paused, hand over a control. 'Whirly stuff? That could be bad. How much whirly stuff? I mean, a few whirls or the inside of a clock?'

'You know that screensaver Mickey has on his computer with pipes that keep growing till they fill the screen?'

He sucked in a deep breath. 'Well, that's not good. Here, let's have a look.' The Doctor was leaning over Rose's shoulder, his fingers tapping out a rhythm she could feel through her jacket.

'Problem?'

He nodded. 'EMP signature. Electromagnetic pulse. Like you get in a nuclear. . . what's it.' He waved his hands to demonstrate. 'Whoosh. You know.'

'I know. Cities getting cooked.'

'Sort of thing,' he agreed. 'Only it just goes on and on. Look at it. Whirly stuff. Like there's a thousand bombs going off one after another. With no let-up. Must be hell out there.'

'Then let's stay in here,' Rose suggested. 'Where it's safe.'

'Ah.'

'It is safe?' She peered at him through the flickering light. 'Tell me it's safe.'

'Er.'

Then the console exploded.

After a few minutes of rushing around the console, pulling levers, flicking switches and finding anti-radiation pills, just in case, the Doctor managed to stabilise the console. It wasn't working, but neither was it exploding and spitting out sparks.

There was a crank handle in a cupboard close to the main doors. Rose watched with a mixture of amusement and apprehension as the Doctor fitted it into a small socket under the telephone and began to turn it. She was holding an everlasting match so he could see what he was doing as the lights continued to flicker and fade and flash around them.

There was a gap between the doors now. Outside looked dark, but not as dark as in the TARDIS. The Doctor paused to get his breath back. 'Can you get through there?' he asked, meaning the narrow gap between the doors.

'Only in my dreams,' Rose told him.

'I probably can,' he said, and Rose cast him an offended look. Was he saying her bum was big? 'Only teasing.' He set back to work. 'Outside,' he went on, more seriously, 'is probably a wasteland. Be prepared for that. Aftermath of a war on this scale isn't much fun. People suffering dreadfully, if they've even survived. Death, destruction, devastation. Lots of "D" words really. Bit of a disaster.'

The gap was wide enough now and Rose squeezed through. She stood just outside the door and stared at the scene in front of her. It was night, stars shining brightly above her, and the scene illuminated by what looked like gas lamps. She blew out the match.

'I can see something,' Rose said loudly, 'that doesn't begin with D.'

'What?'

'I think it's a pub.'

'Good grog, that,' a passer-by rasped. 'Do a good pint in the Spyglass, they do.' Then he gave her a short wave and carried on down the street.

'Well, I didn't expect this,' came the Doctor's enthusiastic voice from beside her. 'Pleasant surprise, isn't it?' Rose watched as the Doctor's grin slowly changed to a puzzled frown. 'So I wonder what's up with the TARDIS,' he said.

Rose was saved from having to answer the Doctor by the click of the TARDIS's doors closing behind him.

'Safety measure,' the Doctor said sadly. 'Keeps the interior in stasis till she gets back to normal.'

'So they close themselves till you open them again?' That seemed sensible.

'Yes, well. Not quite.' The Doctor peered into the distance, avoiding Rose's gaze. 'Absolutely correct, right up to the bit about opening them again.' His voice was fading as he walked briskly away and Rose ran to catch up with him – in time to hear him say, 'Once the doors are shut, they stay shut.'

'Stay shut? What, for ever, like the match?'

'No. That would be daft. Just till she can repair her systems and get everything working properly again.'

'And let me guess, we can't open them with that starting-handle thing either. Because that would be daft.'

'No, completely wrong. We can't open them with the starting handle thing because it's still inside.'

As the Doctor explained that they would have to find the source of the EMP and deactivate it, a steam powered vehicle turned in a wide arc which brought it quite close to where the Doctor and Rose were standing. As it passed, they were enveloped in warm, oily steam. The steam cleared, leaving the Doctor standing alone, looking round in confusion.

'Rose?' he shouted.

She waved to him from where she was perched on the back of the low trailer. 'Come on! Who knows how far this thing's goin'? I'm not traipsing miles through the night after it. Might be going to Carlisle.'

They sat side by side, swinging their legs. Rose watched the people as they passed them. The Doctor was right, the place seemed like a busy seaport. Maybe they were headed for the docks to load a ship. The Doctor was leaning back against a crate and looking up at the sky.

'I don't think we're going to Carlisle,' he said at last.

'York?' Rose suggested.

He shook his head. 'Stars are wrong. And there's no moon.' He sat up straight again. 'This isn't Earth.'

* * *

The Doctor, Rose, and the TARDIS, were in one of the spacious escape pods of the steam powered spaceship Venture. The Doctor thought that how they came to be there was quite amusing. Well. . . interesting at least. Well. . . more complicated than anything else, although. . .

Rose thought it was unbelievable.

What amused the Doctor, was the way the inhabitants of Starfall, a planet in the middle of a zone of electromagnetic gravitation, had developed sophisticated steam powered devices, because no electrical device would work in the zeg, as the locals called it. They had steam powered vehicles, steam powered robots, and even steam powered spaceships. They were brilliant!

What wasn't so amusing, was that the TARDIS had gone into hibernation to protect itself from the effects of the zeg, effectively stranding them on Starfall.

The interesting thing was, there was a legend of a blood thirsty space pirate called Hamlek Glint – Scourge of the Spaceways. Apparently, he had sold his robot crew for scrap, to be crushed and recycled, and made a run for it in his ship, the Buccaneer. Unfortunately, he ran straight into the then uncharted zeg, stranding himself in the spaceship graveyard.

The story went, that Glint shut down all the systems on the Buccaneer to protect it from electrical overload, and put himself into an artefact called the Resurrection Casket so that he would survive in a form of suspended animation.

People had been coming to Starfall for fifty years or more, mainly to mine the asteroids for precious minerals, but also to try and find Glint's mythical treasure aboard the Buccaneer.

The self appointed overlord of Starfall, Drell McCavity, was a firm believer in the myth, and the Doctor had convinced him that he could find the Buccaneer, if McCavity would fund an expedition. Of course, he would have to take his equipment, which he kept in a big blue wooden box.

It got complicated, when Rose found a ten year old stowaway called Jimm, and discovered that the Venture's robotic crew, were in fact Glint's blood thirsty robotic pirates. If that wasn't bad enough, the Doctor discovered that McCavity was a homicidal maniac, who had control of a great big, black furred, trans-dimensional, murdering monster called Kevin.

Now, Kevin thought the label "monster" was a bit unfair. He was a sensitive soul, and was always polite and good mannered. He apologised to his victims before ripping them apart with his razor sharp claws, and when he wasn't slicing and dicing people, he liked to read, and enjoyed intellectual pursuits, such as crosswords and sudoku.

He had twice been contracted to kill the Doctor, which neither he, or the Doctor where too happy about. But on the first occasion, the Doctor had used his guile and superior intelligence to find a loop hole in the contract and declare it null and void.

What Rose thought unbelievable, was the fact that any of them survived the blood thirsty robot pirates. Poor Dugg, McCavity's bodyguard hadn't. He'd held them back, so that she and Jimm could escape to the engine room.

What was even more unbelievable, was that Kevin had carried them from the engine room of the Buccaneer, through the vacuum of space in sealed equipment lockers, over to the airlock of the Venture. Once there, the Doctor had set a course deep into the zeg, where the robots would stop functioning, and the powered up Buccaneer being dragged alongside would explode.

And that was why they were in the escape pod, heading out of the zeg. But that wasn't the end of it, because unbelievable became SO unbelievable, that it just got weird. It turned out that the Resurrection Casket was empty!

McCavity wanted the Doctor to operate the casket to bring the remains of his dead wife back to life. When the Doctor told him it didn't work like that, McCavity slipped him a death note, which Kevin had to obey. After a lot of running around the TARDIS, and helping Kevin with eleven down in the crossword, the Doctor called time and asked if he could say goodbye to his friends.

Being a decent sort of murdering monster, Kevin agreed. The Doctor shook young Jimm's hand, and palmed the death note to him, who in turn slipped it to McCavity. Kevin now had a new contract, and was quite happy to carry this one out. McCavity staggered backwards, away from Kevin, and fell into the open casket, where Jimm slammed down the lid.

'So, it's goodbye time,' the Doctor said. 'Time we were off while the TARDIS is still working. We'll set you on a course back to Starfall, Jimm.'

'We're leaving him on his own?' Rose asked.

'I can manage,' Jimm insisted.

'Kevin can help,' the Doctor said. 'Jimm's got the medallion.' The medallion was a piece of Glint's treasure that called Kevin back from the Shadow Dimension.

'That's right,' Jimm remembered, and pulled it from his pocket. 'Only. . . '

'Yes?' The Doctor sounded hopeful, and Rose wondered what he was up to now.

'Kevin wants his freedom. He doesn't want to have to do what I tell him.'

The huge hairy creature looked down kindly at the boy. 'I've been doing it for long enough,' he said. 'Another few days while we get back to Starfall won't matter much. Or weeks, or months. Or even years, come to that.'

'No,' Jimm said. 'No, you should help because you want to, not because you have to.'

He handed Kevin the medallion. The gold disc was almost lost in the monster's enormous paw. He looked down at it through blood-red eyes that seemed to glow with moisture.

'Thank you,' Kevin said quietly, and closed his hand on the disc. When he opened his fingers again, the medallion was gone. 'Thank you,' he said again, and gave a great roar of laughter.

The Doctor grinned and unlocked the TARDIS door.

'Will they be all right?' Rose asked him as they stepped inside. 'Just the two of them?'

'Two? Three.' The Doctor turned in the doorway and gently ushered Rose back out again. 'I almost forgot. We should open the casket.'

'And that's another thing,' Rose said as the four of them gathered round the black coffin-like casket. 'Glint's out there somewhere. A murderous, homicidal, crazy pirate on the loose, ready to rob and pillage and. . . stuff.'

'I hardly think so,' the Doctor said. 'Open it.'

'Sure?' Rose said.

But before the Doctor could answer, Jimm had undone the clasp and swung the lid open. They looked inside. And as the colour drained from her face and her legs went all wobbly, Rose realised the truth – what the Resurrection

Casket was and what it did, and where Glint had gone.

'Oh,' she said. 'Blimey.'

McCavity's clothes lay in a muddled, empty heap. The baby in the casket looked up at them through large, deep blue eyes.

'Ah, what a sweet ickle baby. Did the nasty man become a little kiddie again, did he, didums?'

'Yes, thank you, Kevin,' the Doctor said. 'I think that's quite enough of that. Actually, I think rather than take Baby McCavity out you'd do better to close the lid again and fish him out when you get back to Starfall. Just as you did ten years ago.'

Rose was horrified. 'You can't shut the baby in a box!'

'It's that or a couple of days in an escape pod listening to his wailing, having nothing to feed him, and no spare nappies,' the Doctor said.

'Jimm's choice.'

'Let's close the lid,' Jimm said. 'He'll still be all right, won't he?'

'When you open the lid he'll be exactly the same as he is now. That's what happens. Living genetic material is extracted and projected. Then the old body is discarded and a new one cloned. That's what the Resurrection Casket does. That's what Kevin here and Bobb found out when they opened it the first time.'

Rose gaped. 'Bobb? You mean, Bobb. . . '

'Bobb is Robbie the cabin boy, yes. Or rather he was.'

'Getting a bit long in the tooth now,' Kevin admitted. 'But still the same old Robert Delvinny. They don't make 'em like him any more, I can tell you.'

'Uncle Bobb was a pirate cabin boy?' Jimm said. 'Oh, way cool! Why'd he never say?'

'I'm not sure he was actually all that proud of it,' the Doctor said.

'Though there was one thing he was proud of.' Kevin nodded in agreement. 'The way he brought up Hamlek Glint, the way he nursed him as a baby and helped him grow into a boy. A boy he was determined would not follow in the same footsteps, a boy who would make a different choice about his life. Boy done good,' he said solemnly.

'Ten years ago,' the Doctor said, raising his eyebrows.

'But hang on,' Rose said. That would mean. . . Ah. . . ' She laughed in nervous embarrassment. 'Right. Got it. Just call me Slow Rose, all right?' She'd finally worked out that Jimm was in fact Hamlek Glint.

Jimm stared at them, one after the other, his eyes wide as the porthole behind him. 'You don't mean. . . '

The Doctor slapped him on the shoulder. 'Sorry I blew up your ship,' he said. 'Cap'n. Ha-ha!'

Rose hugged Jimm. 'Don't worry,' she said. 'He's always doing that. Blew up my job when I first met him, then he took me to see my own sun blow up.'

'Oh, not fair,' the Doctor protested. 'That wasn't actually my fault, you know, it did it all by itself. Blew up your government, OK, fair enough. Though they were all aliens of course. . .' He broke off, realising that Kevin and Jimm were looking at him. Jimm was staring, open-mouthed.

'What? Look, never mind. Important thing is, you're making your choices, and I think Sad Sally's made hers.' Robotic Sally that they met in the pub, was in fact Salvo 5-70 the murderous robot pirate.

'So, time we were going before the TARDIS packs up again.' The Doctor grinned as a thought occurred to him. 'Tell you what, p'raps I'll zeg-proof it and come back and see how you're doing one day.'

'That'd be good,' Jimm said. 'I. . . ' He broke off and sighed. 'I don't know who I really am any more. What I should do.'

'Do you feel any different?' the Doctor asked.

'Well, no.'

'Then you're the same person as you always were. And you should carry on in just the same way, don't you think?'

Jimm shrugged. 'I suppose. It's a surprise but, yes, I guess it makes no difference.' He blew out a long, thoughtful breath. 'You need us to help push your box into the airlock?' he asked.

'No need, thanks,' Rose told him. 'We just sort of. . . go.'

'I can do that,' Kevin said modestly. 'In fact, I've a couple of things to sort out if you can spare me for a few minutes, Jimm. Be right back, though. Promise.' He turned to the Doctor and Rose. 'So, I'll say goodbye, then. It's been fun.'

'Hasn't it, though?' the Doctor said, grabbing Kevin's paw and shaking it enthusiastically.

'Oh yeah,' Rose agreed sarcastically. 'It's been a riot. Come here, big man.' She flung her arms round Kevin, and wasn't surprised to find they didn't reach anything like round him. She also realised, more than slightly embarrassed, that given his height she was probably clutching his buttocks. She let go quickly.

Kevin laughed, and hugged her back, almost squeezing the air from her lungs and cracking her ribs. 'Look after him,' he growled, nodding at the Doctor. 'I think he needs you.' Then to the Doctor, he said, 'Oh, and I'm sorry about. . . you know.'

'Oh, no problem,' the Doctor assured him. 'Happens. And good luck with seventeen across. It's a stinker.'

Kevin frowned, then the frown became a huge hairy smile. 'Bad Eggs. Of course. Thanks for that, Doc.' And in a puff of unsmoke, he was gone. The Doctor laughed, and opened the TARDIS door.

'Bobb'll be surprised when we get back,' Jimm said.

The Doctor paused in the TARDIS doorway. 'Doubt it. I expect Kevin's nipped back a couple of times to tell him you're OK. He may not be pleased, but he won't be surprised. You take care of yourself. Make the right choices, yeah?'

'Yeah,' Rose told him. 'Have a great life. This time, do it right. You'll be fine. You'll be great.' She pulled Dugg's notebook from her jacket pocket and handed it to Jimm. 'Here you go – souvenir. His writing's terrible, but he scribbled notes on everything.'

'Like a logbook,' Jimm said. 'Thanks. It'll help me remember.'

'Captain's log, yeah. Remember our exciting time.'

'And the people who died,' the Doctor said. 'Remember Dugg. Remember who he was and what he did, won't you? Like Bobb remembers.'

'Yeah,' Rose told Jimm.

The boy nodded, his eyes glistening. Rose hugged him again, then followed the Doctor into the TARDIS.

'Will Jimm manage?' Rose asked. 'Will he make it back to Starfall?' Her mobile phone started to ring and she rummaged in the pocket of her jacket.

The TARDIS quivered and spun and swam through the space between reality and non-existence, between time and emptiness. At its heart, the Doctor fiddled with the controls and whistled a hornpipe. 'Manage?' he asked in a pause between verses. 'Of course he'll manage. He'll be magnificent. He has no choice about that.' He grinned. 'It's in his blood.'

She smiled at him, and then looked at her phone. The caller display said "Mickey".

'Hiya Mickey. Is. . . is everythin' all right?' She felt their friendship had been strained by Keisha's accusation of infidelity, and her reluctance to hang around after the Waterhive incident.

'Eh? Oh, yeah, everythin's fine this end now. It took a coupla weeks for everythin' to calm down. Government scientists are sayin' it was mass hysteria like you get with those religious cults and stuff.'

She'd meant, "are YOU all right?" but she didn't push it, he sounded okay. Hang on though; did he just say a couple of weeks? It had only been a couple of days for her. But before she could ask, he was speaking again.

'Did those scars heal up on your face?' She could hear the concern in his voice.

'Oh yeah. A good nights sleep, and they'd completely disappeared.'

She heard the relief in his voice. 'Thank God for that, I was really worried that it was permanent.'

'Well, if they hadn't have gone, the Doctor knows this hospital in New New York that could probably have fixed me up.'

'Talkin' of the Doctor, is he there to talk to? I've got somethin' off the conspiracy sites that'll be right up his street.'


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

Jackie was hanging the last of her washing on the retractable washing line on the balcony of her flat. The sounds of the estate drifted up from the courtyard below, where some lads were playing football. The support pillars of the buildings made brilliant goal posts.

She smiled, as she remembered how Rose and Shareen used to join in when they were little, giving the lads a run for their money. And then she had a worried frown as she remembered the last time she had seen her daughter. It had been as a ghostly apparition in the cab of a truck, and she'd been disfigured with pearl like eyes, and a series of slits in her cheeks and neck.

She picked up the empty washing basket to take it inside, when she heard it, the sound of time and space being stretched and squashed out of shape. She leant over the balcony rail and looked down into the courtyard. 'Rose!'

She dropped the basket on the dining table as she rushed past, hurrying out of the flat and down the steps to the courtyard below. She saw the TARDIS materialise as a football bounced off the door.

The door opened, and the Doctor's head popped out. 'Oi you lot, mind where you're kicking that ball. I might be tempted to join in and show you how to really play the game.'

'Rose!' Jackie cried out, as she saw her step out of the TARDIS.

'Oof, here's trouble,' he said with a smirk.

'Hiya Mum.' Rose beamed her a smile. 'We're back.'

'Of course y'are. Oh come 'ere an' give yer mum a hug.' She pulled Rose into a long, rocking hug, and then took her face in her hands. 'Oh Sweetheart, yer face is all right, them marks have gone like yer said.'

'Yeah, all cleared up like a bad case of acne,' she said with a laugh.

'Lookin' good Babe,' a voice said from behind her.

Rose turned around as Mickey approached. He'd heard the TARDIS land, and had been expecting them. They stood in front of each other, an awkward silence between them. 'Hi,' Rose said quietly.

The Doctor looked between them. 'Right, what's going on with you two then?' he asked like a parent talking to two naughty children.

'Er, nothin',' they said together.

He put his arms around both of their shoulders. 'I thought you two were best friends.'

''We were,' Rose said and then corrected herself. 'Are! We are best friends… aren't we?'

'Yeah, we're best friends,' Mickey agreed.

The Doctor squeezed their shoulders. 'And if best friends have a falling out, what do they do to make up?'

The two of them looked suitably embarrassed. Mickey had his hands in his pockets and shrugged, Rose picked at her fingernails. 'Say sorry?' she ventured as she looked up at the Doctor.

'Not to me, to each other,' he chided.

A lopsided smile formed on Mickey's face and he rolled his eyes. 'Sorry Rose, for bein' possessive an' not wantin' ya to leave. It's your life, and it's a fantastic opportunity. You'd be daft not to go.'

She smiled at him. 'Sorry for runnin' off without talkin' it through with ya. I don't want us to fight.'

Mickey held out his arms for her. 'Me neither.'

She accepted his invitation, and fell into a hug. 'Friends?' he asked her.

'Always,' she replied. 'I've missed ya.'

Jackie walked over to the Doctor and frowned at him with her arms crossed. This made him very nervous, because he was expecting another slap.

'Not bad,' she told him, happy that two friends had made up. 'For an alien,' she finished with a smirk.

Relieved that he wasn't going to get a slap, he nodded and grinned at her. 'Yeah, not bad at all,' he agreed.

They started to make their way back to the flat. 'So how long are ya stayin' then you two? Long enough for a cup of tea?'

Rose laughed. 'Of course Mum, I've got a load of washin' here,' she said, nodding at the rucksack over her shoulder.

Jackie rolled her eyes. 'Typical. I've only just finished a wash.'

'And, Mickey boy said he had something to show me,' the Doctor said.

Mickey pulled a rolled up folder out of the inside of his jacket. 'Yeah, I've got the print outs here. You can look them over while we have a cuppa.'

With mugs of tea on the dining table, Mickey spread out the printouts of his research and started his explanation.

'Well, since Rose took up with ya, I've been followin' the conspiracy websites, an' lookin' for anythin' out of the ordinary.'

The Doctor looked at him with a raised, questioning eyebrow.

'No offence or anythin', but yer gotta admit, weird shit happens around ya.'

Rose laughed. 'He's gotya there.'

The Doctor laughed in agreement. 'Yeah, I can't argue with that, so, what have you got?' he said as he picked up one of the printouts.

'Well, there's this school, Deffry Vale High School,' he started.

The Doctor was reading the headline on the printout. "Here we go again" it read, and had a photograph of unidentified lights in the night sky.

'Oh, and there was a load of UFO sightin's first.' The Doctor gave him the "dribbled down the shirt" look.

'Okay, so, anyway, the school got a new headmaster, new teachin' staff, an' the academic achievements went through the roof.'

'Oh, I saw that on the news,' said Jackie. 'Handsome lookin' bloke he was.'

'So? He's a good headmaster,' the Doctor suggested, after giving her a look of exasperation.

'Ah, but the kids are postin' all sorts of complex stuff on the web sites, it's like they suddenly became professors or somethin'.' He rummaged through the papers and found an example of their work, handing it to the Doctor.

The Doctor frowned as he looked at the complex calculations and formulas. 'They can't possibly know this stuff.' And then his frown turned into a smile. 'Good work Mickey boy.'

Mickey puffed his chest out and had a proud smile on his face. The Doctor had praised him for once. He looked to Rose for recognition, and she squeezed his hand.

'Rose, I think we're going to be staying for a bit. Is that all right?' the Doctor said.

Rose matched his smile with one of her own. He'd found their next adventure. 'Yeah, brilliant. Maybe I can catch up with my old mates this time. Didn't quite work out last time, did it?'

They'd be catching up with an old mate all right, but it wouldn't be hers.

'Right, I'm going to nip back to the TARDIS and see what I can dig up on this headmaster and the teaching staff.' He looked at Rose. 'Why don't you stay here and have a bit of mother-daughter time? I'll be back later.'

'Okay,' Rose replied with a smile. As he headed for the door, she called after him. 'Oi, an' no goin' off an' tryin' to do it on yer own.'

He looked back and gave her his winning smile. 'Nah, we're a team you and me. Wouldn't dream of it.'

It was past midnight, when the Doctor posted an envelope through the letterbox of an ordinary looking house, in an ordinary looking street. Mickey was standing at the end of the drive, keeping watch in case anyone thought they were up to no good…, which they weren't…, well…

'So, that was a winnin' lottery ticket for tomorrow?' Mickey asked him in a stage whisper.

'Yep! That science teacher is going to hand in her notice on Monday, and I'll be appointed new physics teacher at Deffry Vale High School on Tuesday.

'Can ya get me one of those tickets?' Mickey asked him seriously.

'No!' was the simple reply.

'But it was my quid that bought that ticket,' Mickey reminded him.

'And the students of Deffry Vale High School will be very grateful to you. There's a higher purpose here, it's not just about personal gain.'

'But I could really use a lottery ticket.'

'Well go and buy one then.'

'No, I mean a winning one.'

'Well, go and buy one, and choose the winning numbers.'

'Which are?'

'You'll find that out tomorrow night, won't you?'

'Oh man, you're impossible.'

The Doctor gently patted his cheek and smiled. 'Now you're getting it. In the morning, I need you to go to the employment exchange and pick up an application form for the position of dinner lady at the school.'

'You mean Job Centre. . ., hang on, did you say dinner lady?' Mickey asked, knowing what was coming next.

'Yeah, I need Rose on the inside with me.'

Mickey had a lopsided grin. 'Oh man, she's gonna love ya for that.'

'Nah, she'll be fine, go and get some sleep, I'll see you in the morning.'

* * *

'You want me to do what?' Rose asked him incredulously, while Jackie was in fits of laughter; and Mickey had his 'I told you so' smirk on his face.

'I need an agent on the inside; a dinner lady is a perfect cover.'

'What, while you swan around as a teacher?'

'I have to assess the student's academic level, and I need someone to watch the kitchens, if the children are having their brain power boosted, it's probably going to be an additive in the food or drinks.'

Rose 'hmphed' at him.

'C'mon Rose,' he pleaded. 'The children may be in danger here, and it'll only be a couple of hours a day, for a couple of days…, and you do have experience of working in a kitchen.'

'What experience?' Jackie asked.

'Er, nothin' Mum, it was just an adventure we had a while ago.' She knew the Doctor was referring to Justica, where they'd been thrown in prison, and Rose had been put to work in the kitchens.

'And you get to stay home with your mum for a few days and catch up with your friends,' he said, trying to add enticements.

Rose thought about what he'd said, if the children were in danger, a couple of days working in the kitchens was the least she could do to keep them safe.

'Okay, for the kids, an' only for a couple of days, yeah?'

The Doctor pulled her into a hug. 'That's my girl.'

Rose returned the hug. Yes, she thought, she was his girl.

* * *

Over the weekend, the Doctor wanted Rose to show him HER London. The places she liked to go, the things she used to do, the people she knew. Saturday morning, she took him to Choumert Road market, and he was as happy as he was in any market on any alien planet, laughing and joking with the stall holders. In the evening, she met up with Shareen and her old crowd in the local pub near the estate.

'Keisha was right,' Shareen whispered, eyeing the Doctor appreciatively. 'Very foxy. You've done all right for yourself there girl.'

Although the Doctor was talking to a man called Ryan, who said he was Shareen's boyfriend, he was eavesdropping on Rose and Shareen's conversation, and turned to look at Rose.

'Shar! It's not like that,' Rose said, blushing as she saw the Doctor waggle his eyebrows and give her his "foxy" grin. 'We're just travellin' together.'

Shareen frowned. 'Not gay is he?' The Doctor spluttered into his beer and nearly choked.

'No, he's not gay! We're just friends,' Rose declared, trying to convince her friend. . . and herself.

Shareen then remembered what Keisha had told her about the incident on the Thames. 'Oh, an' is it right what Keisha said, that he's alien and you're a sort of Mulder an' Scully, investigatin' aliens?'

Rose saw the Doctor's face go serious. He wouldn't like that, people knowing who he really was. Rose snorted a laugh. 'Is that what she told you? She's a proper wind up merchant, ain't she. Nah, we just happened to be down the embankment when it all kicked off. The Doctor bumped into this scientist he knew and was able to help out.'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and nodded appreciatively. That was a good cover story.

'Yeah, that's pretty much what Mickey said,' Shareen told her.

'Really?' Rose said in surprise, and then realised it backed up her story. 'Well of course he did, he was there with us.'

The Doctor smiled at her over his pint and winked. Nice recovery. 'Where is Keisha? I thought she'd be here tonight' he said.

'She's gone with Jay to see their mum. After all they went through, they thought it was time to try and mend some fences. Y'know, put the past behind them and move on.'

Rose smiled. 'Oh that's good. I think a lot of Keisha's problems stem from her anger at her mother.'

Shareen nodded. 'Yeah. . . Oh, and have ya heard about Jay? He's up for a promotion after the way he handled himself in the Thames incident.'

'Quite right too,' the Doctor agreed, and the evening passed very enjoyably as he heard tales from Rose's friends about her childhood.

The next morning, Rose awoke to the aroma of cooking bacon, and the associated sizzling sound coming from the kitchen. For a moment, she thought she was back in the TARDIS, as her room there was a near perfect match for the one in the flat.

She put on her fluffy slippers, and went to see who was cooking Sunday breakfast. As she went past her mum's door, it opened, and Jackie's head popped out.

''Ere, who's fryin' bacon then?' Which was a bit of a rhetorical question, as there was only one other person in the flat, who had been using the spare room.

The Doctor heard them come into the kitchen and turned from the cooker, holding a frying pan and spatula. 'Ah, morning,' he said cheerily. 'How's your head?' he asked Rose.

'Fine thanks. . . What's all this then?' she asked as he put the rashers of bacon on the plates, along with the fried eggs and bread he'd cooked earlier.

'Sunday fry up!' he said as though it was obvious. 'Shareen said you liked nothing better after a night out, how did she put it? "On the lash", than a nice fry up the next morning.'

Rose and Jackie looked at each other.

'Works for me,' Jackie said with a smile, and they all sat down to Sunday breakfast.

'So, what did you used to do on a Sunday then?' the Doctor asked as they ate.

'Well, before I met you, I used to have a lie in and chill out for the day. Y'know, before havin' to go back to work on the Monday,' said Rose.

'Well, you can chill out. I've got to do a bit of jiggery-pokery so that Deffry Vale High School will be expecting me as a science supply teacher.'

Jackie smiled. 'That'll be lovely. It's the most I've seen of ya since ya stayed over at Christmas.'

While the Doctor was away from the flat, doing his jiggery-pokery in the TARDIS, the phone rang, and Jackie answered it. She looked a bit puzzled as she held the handset out towards Rose. 'It's some woman for you Sweetheart.'

Rose took the phone off her mum. 'Hello?'

'Is that Rose Tyler?' a cultured female voice asked.

'Yeah,' Rose replied suspiciously.

'Oh good. My name is Kate Stewart, and although you don't know me, my father used to work with the Doctor. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, he may have mentioned him?'

Rose thought back to one of the bedtime stories he'd told her, and she remembered the name. 'Was he the one in charge of UNIT?'

'Yes, that's him. I'm glad he still talks about him. That's part of the reason I'm phoning, we have a sort of a secret club of people who have known and travelled with the Doctor,' Kate explained.

'What, a sort of "I met the Doctor and survived" club,' Rose said jokingly.

Kate laughed. 'Exactly, and I wondered if you had a couple of hours free, if you'd like to have a look at our archive and join the club?'

Rose thought about it for a while. 'How do I know this isn't some ploy to get at the Doctor?'

'I see he's still good at choosing the best for his companions,' Kate said with obvious admiration. 'Look me up and then give me a call back. You can come to my office at the Tower of London, or I can send a car for you. Bring someone with you if you'd feel safer, but please come, I'd love to meet you.'

'Okay, give me an hour and I'll call you back.' Rose thought that she could go over to Mickey's flat, and he could do a "proper" search for Kate Stewart. He could then go with her; after all, he'd also met the Doctor and survived.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Sarah Jane had driven her car to Belle Vue Park, where she saw the TARDIS standing inconspicuously on a path, next to a hedge. A now familiar figure, wearing a brown pinstriped suit stepped out.

'Cup of tea?' he asked. He stepped aside and let her walk inside.

'You've redecorated,' she said, looking around.

'Do you like it?' Her approval meant a lot to him, even after all these years.

'Oh. . ., I. . ., I do. Yeah. . ., I preferred it as it was, but er. . ., yeah. It'll do.

'I love it,' Rose said with a beaming smile.

'Hey, you what's forty seven times three hundred and sixty nine?' Sarah Jane asked her.

'No idea. It's gone now. The oil's faded.'

'But you're still clever…, more than a match for him,' Sarah Jane said, nodding her head sideways in the Doctor's direction.

'You and me both,' Rose told her. She turned towards the console. 'Doctor?'

'Um, we're about to head off. . ., but you could come with us,' he said smiling at her.

She shook her head. 'No…, I can't do this anymore. Besides, I've got a much bigger adventure ahead. Time I stopped waiting for you and found a life of my own.' Both the Doctor and Rose looked disappointed.

'Can I come,' a quiet voice asked from behind them, which left an awkward silence. 'No, not with you,' Mickey said, pointing at Sarah Jane. 'I mean with you,' he asked, looking at the Doctor. 'Because I'm not the tin dog, and I want to see what's out there.'

Rose mouthed 'no' to the Doctor and Sarah Jane saw it. Oh dear, there were some unresolved issues between Rose and Mickey.

'Oh go on Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, a Mickey Smith, you need a Smith on board.'

'Okay then, I could do with a laugh.'

Mickey smiled. 'Rose. . ., is that okay?'

'No, great,' she lied. 'Why not?'

Sarah Jane was watching Rose; she had a face like a petulant teenager. She realised that Rose and the Doctor had issues that hadn't even been raised yet; you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. It was probably best if she left them to sort out their own problems.

'Well, I'd better go then,' she said, gently taking Rose's arm and leading her to the handrail, sensing that Rose wanted to speak to her, and she was right. For the first time since meeting the Doctor, Rose was uncertain of her future with him.

She was recalling a conversation they'd had as they were leaving a coffee shop, and she'd asked him how many other people had travelled with him. Meeting Sarah Jane had been a reality check for her.

'Does it matter?' he'd said sharply.

'Yeah, it does, if I'm just the last in a long line….'

The Doctor had stopped and turned to face her. 'As opposed to what?'

That had stunned her as though he'd slapped her in the face. 'I thought you and me were. . ., I obviously got it wrong. I've been to the year five billion, right, but this. . .? Now this is really seein' the future. You just leave us behind…. Is that what you're going to do to me?'

'No,' he'd said quickly. 'Not to you. . ..'

'But Sarah Jane. . .? You were that close to her once, an' now…, you never even mention her…, why not?'

And then he'd told her, he'd REALLY told her. 'I don't age. I regenerate…. But humans decay…. You wither and you die,' he'd said, his voice tinged with anger. 'Imagine watching that happen to someone who you. . ..' He'd stopped himself from finishing that sentence.

'What, Doctor?' she'd pressed, but, as usual, he'd changed the direction of the conversation.

'You can spend the rest of your life with me,' he'd told her, and her heart had soared, it was just what she'd wanted to hear, but then he'd brought her down with a crash. 'But I can't spend the rest of mine with you…. I have to live on…. Alone….. That's the curse of the Time Lords.'

Rose came out of her memories. 'What do I do?' Rose asked her quietly, glancing over her shoulder at the Doctor. 'Do I stay with him?'

'Yes,' she replied without hesitation. 'Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.' She pulled Rose into a motherly hug, she knew how Rose felt, and she knew some of what was in store for her.

'Find me,' she said kindly. 'If you need to. . ., one day…, find me.' She didn't need to say, 'when it all goes wrong, and you find yourself on your own'.

Without another word, she turned and walked out of the TARDIS, the Doctor followed her out to say goodbye.

'If you don't want me to come, I'll go,' Mickey said. 'If it's gonna make things awkward for ya.'

Rose had her back to him, leaning with her arm against the coral. 'No, its okay,' she said unconvincingly, turning to face him. 'If he can change his face, he can change his mind.'

Mickey gave a single laugh, she still didn't know that the Doctor, the 'old' Doctor, had asked him to come with them and he'd said no, he wasn't ready then.

'Only, I know what you're goin' through.' Rose gave him a defiant, questioning look. 'The uncertainty, the insecurity, I've been there and got more than one T-shirt.'

And he did know what she was going through, what with Jimmy Stone, and then the Doctor, he had never known where he stood with Rose, not really.

With those words of friendship and comfort, Rose realised that she'd been acting like a pubescent teenager. The Doctor had lived for over nine hundred years; of course he'd had other travelling companions, why should she be anything special?

But there was that feeling she got when she held his hand, was she imagining it, or was it real? Then there was the Dalek, "what use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" it had said. She thought it was goading him, but she hoped the cold blooded killing machine had seen something in the Doctor that she wanted to be there.

"Imagine watching that happen to someone who you. . .." was he going to say loved? Had he watched someone he loved grow old and die, or was it that he didn't want to watch it happen to her?

The Doctor came back into the TARDIS and walked up to the console. 'Right then, where next?' he said with a cheery smile, the preceding awkwardness forgotten or just ignored. He powered up the console and started the time rotor, sending them into the Vortex.

'So, Mickey Boy, the whole of time and space, where do you want to go first?' the Doctor asked him.

'Er, I don't know,' he said, struggling to think of somewhere that he wanted to go. He looked over to Rose. 'Whatcha think Babe, where should we go?'

He saw the look on Rose's face, and knew that she needed to talk to the Doctor alone; it was a human thing, because the Doctor was clueless. The TARDIS did a great job of translating languages, even adding inflections and syntax, but it couldn't translate the non verbal body language.

Mickey was human, and he'd been Rose's boyfriend for long enough to know that sometimes, when she was saying one thing, she was actually meaning the opposite. The Doctor on the other hand, was an alien, and even with all the time he'd spent around humans, he hadn't mastered the art of body language.

'Tell ya what. . ., I'll go an' have a think about it. Do yer have any beer on board Doc?' Mickey said.

Rose realised that Mickey was giving her some space with the Doctor and smiled at him gratefully, she really didn't deserve a friend like him. 'Yeah, there are some cans in the fridge in the kitchen. Through there and second on the right.

Mickey nodded and went to find a beer, and Rose turned to face the Doctor, who was concentrating on the console.

'So…, Sarah Jane,' she said. He turned to look at her and his face became an impassive mask. 'Why did she leave, did you send her away because you couldn't bear to see her grow old?'

He straightened up and took a deep breath. 'No, it was nothing like that Rose. Sarah Jane had threatened to leave after a difficult adventure, I think it was to shake me up a bit and pay more attention to her.'

'Really?' Rose said sarcastically.

The Doctor missed the sarcasm. 'Yes, you humans are SO high maintenance. But then I had a summons from the Time Lords to return home. Back then, the Time Lords were very insular, almost xenophobic, which is why I was seen as a rebel, because I always loved to meet foreigners.'

Rose could see where this was going now. 'So Sarah Jane wasn't allowed to go with you.'

'No, I dropped her off at her home…, well, I dropped her off near her home…, well, it was in the British Isles anyway.'

Even with all the uncertainty she was feeling at the moment, Rose couldn't help herself from snorting a laugh, she just loved his runaway gob.

'We kept bumping into each other, before and after she'd left,' he said and Rose gave him a puzzled look. 'It's a time travelling thing, but she never came back to the TARDIS,' he said sadly.

Rose could see by his expression, and the tone of his voice, that he hadn't just dumped Sarah Jane, he had missed her, that was obvious. It was time to find out where she stood with him, and she was reluctant to ask the next question, because the answer could change her life forever, and forever was a very long time.

'Did you mean it, when you said I could spend the rest of my life with you, or were or just sayin' that to make a point?'

'Well, I was making a point,' he started, and Rose's face fell. 'But I also said that I would love you to come with me, and I meant it.'

'Really?' she asked uncertainly, but feeling relieved. 'An' what about when I get all old and wrinkly, will you still want me around then?'

He smiled at her. 'You are Rose Tyler, and you will always be Rose Tyler, just as I will always be the Doctor,' he said, holding out his arms for her. She walked forwards and accepted his reassuring hug. 'But if you turn into anything like your mother, I'll be throwing you out long before then,' he said with a laugh.

Rose laughed with him, that comment told her that he wouldn't throw her out, no matter what.

Mickey returned from the kitchen, swigging from a can of beer, and they released the hug quickly, turning towards him.

'Well?' Rose asked.

'Do you have a 'lucky dip', y'know, like a magical mystery tour setting?' Mickey said with a smile.

The Doctor beamed at him. 'A mystery tour, brilliant, my favourite kind,' he said, and twiddled a few settings without looking. 'Here we go then.' He slapped a lever down and they felt the TARDIS land. 'Come on then, it's all out there waiting for us, let's have a look,' he said as he walked down the ramp.

Mickey followed him through the doors, with Rose following behind.

'It's a spaceship. Brilliant! I got a spaceship on my first go,' he said, as though he'd been on a fairground ride.

Rose looked around the messy chamber. 'It looks kind of abandoned. Anyone on board?'

'Nah, nothing here,' the Doctor said with his hands in his pockets. 'Well, nothing dangerous…, well, not that dangerous…. You know what. . .; I'll just have a quick scan. . ., in case there's anything dangerous.' He moved to a control console and examined the controls.

'So, what's the date, how far we gone?' Rose asked him with an expectant smile.

'About three thousand years into your future, give or take.' He pulled up a lever, which emitted a blue light, and twisted it to lock it in place. Parts of the ceiling started to slide away from each other.

'Fifty first century…, Diagmar Cluster, you're a long way from home, Mickey…, two and a half galaxies.

Rose put her hands on Mickey's shoulders. 'Mickey Smith, meet the universe,' she said, enjoying showing off, she understood now why the Doctor enjoyed showing her new things. 'See anything you like?'

'It's so realistic!' he said with an excited laugh, looking through a window. He'd only ever seen this stuff as a special effect in films, and now, here he was, out among the stars, for real!

'Dear me, had some cowboys in here…, got a ton of repair work going on,' he said, rummaging about in the discarded equipment. He looked at a display screen. 'Now that's odd…, look at that…, all the warp engines are going…, full capacity. There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe, but we're not moving. He looked through the ceiling observation window. 'So where's all that power going?'

'Where'd all the crew go?' Rose asked.

'Good question,' he said, checking more of the readouts. 'No life readings on board.'

'Well, we're in deep space, they didn't just nip out for a quick fag,' Rose observed.

'No, I've checked all the smoking pods…. Can you smell that?' the Doctor said.

'Yeah…, someone's cooking,' Rose replied.

'Sunday roast, definitely,' Mickey said.

The Doctor looked concerned, no life forms on board, the smell of cooking meat, he'd wondered what had happened to the crew, and now he was sure he didn't want to know the answer.

* * *

'What happened? Where did the time window go? How's he going to get back?' Mickey asked. Rose didn't answer, what could she say? A tear trickled down her cheek. 'We can't fly the TARDIS without him. How's he going to get back?' They were trapped on board a deserted space ship, with a time machine they couldn't fly.

As if Rose didn't have enough insecurities about meeting Sarah Jane, and the Doctor's reaction to seeing her again, his reaction to Madame de Pompadour, and his obvious infatuation with her, was a real slap in the face.

Without any apparent thought to her or Mickey, he had smashed through a time portal, leaving himself trapped in the eighteenth century, and them in the fifty first, all to save the mistress of the King of France, a mistress! Not even a queen, but a…, a tart!

'He'll find a way back,' Rose said, trying to convince herself as much as Mickey. 'He always finds a way.'

'An' if he doesn't?'

'He will!' Rose shot back quickly. She was angry at him for just running off to save that tart, but her faith in him was absolute, she never doubted him.

'So what do we do then?' Mickey asked. 'Is there a radio on the TARDIS or somethin', so that we can contact him?' He'd seen Star Trek, he knew about communicators and scanners.

'Not that I know of…, maybe there's somethin' here that we can use,' she said, clearing the clutter off the console.

'How long do we wait then?' Mickey asked as they rummaged through the wreckage of the controls.'

What kind of a dumb question was that? They were stuck there until the Doctor came back, but she remembered that time passed differently on the other side of the portal.

'Time passed at a different rate through the fireplace, hopefully it shouldn't take him too long to figure out a way back,' she said, again, trying to convince herself that her faith in him was well founded.

They spent a few hours exploring the derelict ship, always looking for anything that may be a way to re-establish a link with eighteenth century France.

'C'mon Babe,' Mickey said eventually. 'Let's go grab somethin' to eat in the TARDIS.' His initial enthusiasm for being in space, had been replaced by a fear that this was going to be the rest of his life. Mind you, being stuck here with Rose, no other blokes around, a TARDIS full of the comforts of home…, it could be worse.

Rose programmed the food replicator to produce two plates of chilli con carne, while Mickey grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and a couple of glasses from the cupboard. She brought the food over to the table, and sat opposite Mickey.

'So, how much food do we have on board then?' Mickey asked.

'I dunno really, the Doctor said that the food replicator can recombine individual atoms and molecules into food items. I suppose it's infinite,' she said.

'So we won't starve then.'

'Mickey, he's comin' back.'

'Yeah, you said, I'm just tryin' to plan for any contingency…, y'know, a bit of crisis management.'

Actually, she couldn't argue with that, they didn't know how long it would take him to get back.

They finished their meal and Rose put the plates, glasses, and cutlery in the dishwasher, before heading back to the console room, and out into the spaceship to see if there was any progress on the Doctor getting back.

Rose stepped through the doors and was immediately grabbed into a hug by the Doctor who had just run back from the fireplace.

'Oh my God,' she squealed. 'You did it, you made it back!' she said with relief, her anger and insecurities forgotten for the moment.

'How long did you wait?' he asked her as he swung her from side to side.

'Five and a half hours,' she laughed.

'Great. Always wait five and a half hours,' he said excitedly.

He thought about hugging Mickey, but they settled on a handshake.

'Where've you been?' Rose asked him.

'Explain later…. Into the TARDIS, be with you in a sec.'

He ran back to the fireplace, and suddenly, Rose's insecurity returned with a vengeance. He was calling her name through the fireplace, and she watched with a kind of resigned acceptance, as he activated the turntable, taking him back again to eighteenth century France, and into the arms of the King's mistress.

She looked away from the fireplace, and silently stepped through the door into the TARDIS. She'd been a fool, she thought to herself, what would a Time Lord want with a common shop girl, when he could have a sophisticated socialite from eighteenth century France? Even if she was just a common tart?

Reinette was a beautiful, sophisticated, mature, experienced woman, what did the Doctor say? 'One of the most accomplished women who ever lived', he was obviously a fan. And what was she? A common, immature girl from a council estate, with a bronze medal in gymnastics. How could she compete with that?

Mickey was standing by the console, watching Rose walking up the ramp, her face showing the sadness that she was feeling. He wanted to say things to comfort her and reassure her, but he was a bloke, and he didn't really know what to say.

'Gone again 'as he?' is all he could think of, and Rose nodded.

They stood there silently by the console when they heard the door open and close slowly, the earlier, fiery enthusiasm, replaced with a resigned sadness, visible in his hunched shoulders and heavy steps.

'Why her?' Rose asked, trying to assess his mood. 'Why did they think they could repair the ship with the head of Madame de Pompadour?'

'We'll probably never know…, there was massive damage in the computer memory banks, it probably got confused,' he said as he walked up the ramp. 'The TARDIS can close down the time windows now the droids are gone…, should stop it causing any more trouble.' He said as he started to activate the console.

'Are you all right?' She asked quietly, studying his face.

'I'm always all right.' He said a bit too quickly, continuing to busy himself with the console. Rose just stood and watched him.

Mickey took her hand and gently tugged her away. 'Come on, Rose. It's time you showed me around the rest of this place.'

He was right, she could see that the Doctor needed some time to himself, but she needed to speak to him at some point, to find out exactly where she stood. What, with Sarah Jane and now Reinette, she felt that she'd been deluding herself, that she meant nothing to him, a child that he could impress and show off to.

Without any enthusiasm, Rose showed Mickey the living room, with the comfy sofas, large screen TV and sound system, the Medi-Bay, the library, the gym and swimming pool. They found their way to the clothing department, which the Doctor still called the wardrobe, and then stumbled upon some guest bedrooms on the way back.

'I suppose one of these is yours,' Rose told him.

'Brilliant,' Mickey said, looking at the five star hotel room.

Rose took him back to the living room and switched on the TV, finding the latest Top Gear episode to watch. 'Why don't you watch this, while I go an' have a word with the Doctor?'

'Okay,' he said reluctantly. 'I'll see you later.'

Rose made her way back to the console room, and found the Doctor leaning on the console, watching the time rotor pump up and down, as though he found solace in it.

'Hi,' she said quietly, hesitantly, not sure if she should interrupt his meditation.

He turned and smiled at her. 'Hello…, where's Mickey Boy?'

She looked over her shoulder. 'He's in the living room, watchin' Top Gear.' The Doctor nodded an 'ah'.

'Can I…, can I ask you somethin'?'

'Yes, of course you can Rose, you can ask me anything?'

Without any preamble, she went straight to the crux of what was bothering her. 'When you charged through that time window. . ., did you give any thought to me, or Mickey?' Rose asked him.

'Of course, but I had to stop those androids from rampaging through eighteenth century France.'

'And I don't suppose Reinette had anythin' to do with it?'

'Well, her life was in danger.'

'And so you ran off to save her, trapping yourself in eighteenth century France, and us, three thousand years in our future,' Rose said, she could feel her anger rising at the thought of what he'd done.

'We weren't trapped, I came back didn't I?'

'Only 'cos you got lucky. Would you have run off and left Reinette like that to rescue me?'

The Doctor was trying to gather his thoughts, but there was no way Rose was going to let him.

'No, of course you wouldn't, 'cos she's a high class hooker from Versailles, and I'm just a common shop girl from Peckham.'

'Wha? Rose, I don't think of you like that,' he said, trying to placate her.

'Don't you. . .? Don't you? First it was Sarah Jane, and now Reinette. Got a thing about pickin' up women an' then dumpin' them when a better one comes along have ya?' she said angrily.

The Doctor was stunned by this outburst, and it took him by surprise. He didn't have the human brain to cope with this kind of emotional turmoil. 'Rose…, I….'

'Oh leave me alone, I'm goin' to bed.' She stormed past him and went to her room, slamming the door behind her, and diving face down on her bed.

A short while later there was a gentle knock at the door. 'Rose?' he called to her.

'Go away,' she said between sobs.

'Rose, please, let me explain.'

'What, so you can come up with more excuses, more lies?'

That hurt him; he leaned against the wall and slid down to sit with his arms around his knees. 'I was trying to find out why the androids wanted Reinette's brain. I did something risky; I went inside her mind to have a look.'

He paused and listened, there was no response from her room, at least she wasn't telling him to shut up and go away. 'Telepath to telepath isn't a problem, because they both have disciplined minds. But a telepath to non telepath is risky, all those feelings and emotions getting in the way. While I was exploring her thoughts, her emotions were sneaking under my rational thoughts and imprinting on my Limbic system.'

He paused again, thinking about his feelings for Reinette.

'What happened?' a small voice asked from Rose's room.

'It was like taking a love potion, I was infatuated with her, and there was nothing I could do about it. I came back here so that I could bring her through and show her the stars.'

'Wouldn't that have messed up the time lines or somethin'?'

Oh Rose, she was SO smart, and he was SO proud of her for that. 'Yes it would, big time, and I would never let anything do that, would I? So, can you see that I wasn't in my right mind?'

He heard the door click, and he stood up, Rose's tear stained face appearing in the gap. They just stood there looking at each other.

'I'm sorry Rose,' he said. 'I was trying to make things right for her, and I made them wrong for us.'

'You made me feel so worthless, especially after the thing with Sarah Jane and everythin'.'

'I know, and I am truly sorry, I never meant to hurt you.' He hesitated. 'Do you…, do you want me to take you home, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to leave.'

Rose opened the door, wrapped her arms around him, and buried her face in his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and rested his chin on top of her head.

'No,' her muffled voice said. 'I want to stay here with you.'

He realised he'd been holding his breath, when he exhaled with relief. 'Come on, time for bed,' he said and led her into her bedroom, so that he could tell her a bedtime story as she fell asleep.

Neither of them noticed the door of the guest bedroom silently close.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

When Mickey woke up, it was fair to say that he was a little disorientated. Firstly, he'd been dreaming that he and Rose had been out on a Saturday night, like they used to, not that long ago. Secondly, he could smell the Sunday morning fry up that she always did when she stayed over.

So, when he opened his eyes and saw that he wasn't in his flat, but in a hotel room, he had to try and remember the previous day's events, and where he'd ended up.

'Mmmm, Rose?' he said sleepily, and then it came back to him, he was on the TARDIS, and she'd been making up with the Doctor, finishing with a hug outside her bedroom, before he took her inside. Well, that burst his bubble and put his dream firmly in the realm of fantasy.

He'd known it for months now, and didn't want to believe it, and now, even when he believed it, he didn't want to admit it. Rose loved him, but she wasn't IN love with him, not anymore, not like he was, and he knew that if she came and said 'Mickey, I've been a fool again', he'd have her back like a shot.

He climbed out of bed, and in his boxer shorts, found the en suite shower. He enjoyed the perfect temperature shower, and the drying air jets had him in fits of laughter. He went back into the bedroom and investigated some of the draws, where he found clean boxers and socks that fit him perfectly.

'I don't think anyone will mind if I borrow some clean underwear,' he said to himself, and set off to find the source of the wonderful smell.

'Mickety-Mick,' the Doctor said, as he walked into the kitchen, holding his fist up for a 'bump'. 'How did you sleep?'

'Amazin' actually, it was so comfortable in that room,' he said.

Rose smiled at him. 'That's the TARDIS, she gets in yer head and relaxes ya…; I love it. D'ya want a fry up?'

'Hell yeah, I'm starvin'.' He sat down at the table, while Rose got up and went to the counter first and poured him a mug of tea before going to the cooker and putting his fry up on a plate.

'There ya go mate,' she said as she put them on the table in front of him.

'Hah! Just like old times, eh Babe?' he said with a grin. Rose looked a bit awkward, not really knowing how to react.

Mickey saw her expression and smiled at her. 'Hey, c'mon Rose, we had some good times, didn't we? Ya can't deny that. Ooh, I'm gonna miss your fry ups.'

Rose looked at him, studying his face, as she realised what he had just said. He had moved on, he was telling her that he had moved on, but they were still mates. She reached across the table and squeezed his hand, as her eyes became moist with tears.

'Mickey, any time you want a fry up, you just give me a call, yeah?'

Mickey grinned at her, putting a fork full in his mouth. 'I'll hold ya to that.'

The Doctor smiled at them, happy that these two friends had finally come to their senses and worked out their differences, and they were different, which was good, 'vive le difference'.

'So, did ya do this fry up in the replicator then?' Mickey asked as he had a swig of his tea.

The Doctor answered that one. 'No, it was all Rose, and can I just say that I agree with you on her fry up's, they're the best,' he said with a big smile. 'You can let the replicator do it, or you can just replicate the raw ingredients, and cook it yourself.'

'Mmmm, definitely cooked for me,' Mickey said.

'Is that all you boys want me for, my fry ups?' she joked. After the heart to heart she'd had with both of them, she was more relaxed and confident with her place on the TARDIS.

'No, of course not,' Mickey said.

'No, you make a mean cup of tea as well,' the Doctor said with a grin.

'Shut up,' Rose laughed, giving him a playful slap on his shoulder.

'Oh, an' I need ya to cut me hair,' Mickey said cheekily. 'Actually, do you have any hair trimmers on board? I could do with a trim.'

'There are some in the Medi-Bay,' the Doctor told them, and saw their expressions. 'Don't ask.'

'Okay, I'll give you a cut after breakfast,' she told him, and then turned to the Doctor 'So, what's the plan for today then?'

'While we're in the Vortex, I'd like to update the galaxy maps. Because the universe is expanding, the TARDIS has to regularly compensate for the movements of the galaxies.'

'Okay,' Rose said. 'Can we help you with that?'

'That would certainly speed things up, thanks. I'll go and make a start, and you can come through when you've finished shearing Mickey.' He stood and left the kitchen, going through to the console room.

In the Medi-Bay, Rose had got Mickey in an examination chair, and tilted it backwards so the hair didn't go down his collar.

'So, how short do ya want it? I mean, it's short as it is,' she said as she picked up the cordless trimmer.

'A number one, all over.'

'Blimey, that is short!'

'Well, it's time I left the past behind and made a fresh start, y'know, a new image.'

Rose set the cut to one, and switched the trimmers on. 'About that Mickey . . . I'm sorry for the way things have worked out . . . the way I've treated ya.'

'Hey, don't go beatin' yerself up Rose; I should 'ave seen it comin' ages ago, when ya took off with that wanker Jimmy. It's like y'were always lookin' to do somethin' with yer life, where as me, I was happy just to go down the pub, watch football, and fix cars.'

'Yeah, but I thought when I'd found what I was lookin' for, you'd be there with me.'

'I must admit when you called me from Cardiff, I thought things weren't goin' well for ya and that you wanted us to get back together.'

'Ah, yeah . . . sorry about how that went an' all,' she said sheepishly as she guided the humming trimmer over his head.

Mickey laughed at the memory. 'An' then when Captain Flash opened the door, I wondered what the hell was goin' on.'

Rose laughed with him at the memory, and the name 'Captain Flash', it reminded her of 'Flash Heart' from Blackadder and how Jack could have been the inspiration for that character.

'I think you were more Jack's type than me,' she said with a smirk. 'There ya go, all done.'

She sat the chair up and dusted his shoulders with a soft brush. 'Blimey, it don't 'alf make ya look different.'

'Really?' he said with a grin. 'Good different, or bad different?' He'd forgotten that the 'new' Doctor had asked her that exact same question when he'd woken up from his regeneration.

Rose smiled at the memory and gently stroked his cheek. 'Good . . . more rugged and mature.'

'Rugged and mature,' he said puffing out his chest like a proud peacock. 'Yer never know, maybe I'll pull some cute alien bird while we're out here,' he said, grinning initially, but then frowning in thought. 'There again, I don't fancy havin' kids with green skin and four arms. Can yer imagine; it's bad enough when they've only got two?'

Rose laughed, but she realised that Mickey had been thinking like that about them, settling down, and having a family. She felt guilty that it wasn't for her, not yet, not now that she knew that there was so much out there, and there was a man who could give her what she longed for.

'C'mon then, let's go an' see what the Doctor's up to,' she said, holding out her hand for him.

Mickey looked at her offered hand and smiled. Taking her hand, he realised their love for each other was like siblings now, rather than lovers. They went and joined the Doctor at the console, where he was studying the display screen, and making adjustments to the controls.

'Ah, right, there you are. Rose, if you could go over there and get ready to hold down that lever. Mickey, see that button? Hold your finger on it.'

As the universe expanded, the galaxies moved away from each other, and the Doctor was mapping those movements, storing the data in the galaxy maps with the button Mickey was holding down.

'So what kind of things do you get up to when you're travellin?' Mickey asked to pass the time.

'Oh, all sorts,' Rose said, and proceeded to recount their adventures so far, occasionally interrupted by the Doctor asking her to push the lever up and then down again.

'. . .. And of course, you remember Margaret the Slitheen, the TARDIS turned her into an egg and we took her home,' Rose said before carrying on with her narrative.

When she got to the Queen Victoria story, Mickey's jaw dropped. 'You're kiddin' me, a real, live werewolf? And you were knighted?'

'Yeah, I know, how crazy is that?' Rose laughed.

They carried on chatting, and Mickey was so enthralled by their stories that he didn't pay any attention when the Doctor and Rose sat on the jump seats.

'And that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes? Do you remember? The way she looked at you! And then she opens her mouth and fire comes out!' the Doctor said with a laugh.

'I thought I was going to get frazzled!' she laughed with him.

'Yeah, one minute she's standing there, and the next minute . . . '

'. . ..Roar!' they said together, laughing.

'Yeah, where was that, then? What happened?' Mickey asked, smiling at the fun that they'd had.

'Oh, it was on this er, this er, planet thing, asteroid, it's a long story, you had to be there.' He noticed that Mickey was holding down the button on the console. 'Er, what're you doing that for?'

'Because you told me to,' Mickey said.

'When was that?'

'About half an hour ago.'

'Erm . . . you can let go now,' the Doctor said sheepishly. Mickey took his finger off the button and it went 'bloop'. Rose started giggling.

'Well, how long's it been since I could've stopped?'

'Ten minutes. . .? Twenty. . .? Twenty nine?'

'You just forgot me!' Mickey said angrily.

'No, no, no. I was just . . . I was . . . I was calibrating. I was just. . .. No, I know exactly what I'm doing.'

'BOOM!' The console exploded in a flash of light and plumes of smoke, and the group were thrown to the floor. They picked themselves up and clung on to the console.

'What's happened?' Rose asked.

'The Time Vortex is gone. That's impossible, it's just gone,' the Doctor said, trying to compensate with the controls. 'Brace yourself! We're going to crash!'

The TARDIS slammed into the ground, and threw them to the floor, all the lights went out, and the console fell silent.

'Everyone all right? Rose? Mickey?'

'I'm fine,' Mickey said. 'I'm okay. Sorry. Yeah.

The Doctor looked up at the rotor. 'She's dead. . .. The TARDIS is dead.'

'You can fix it?' Rose asked as though it was a statement of fact.

'There's nothing to fix…, she's perished,' he said as he circled the console. 'The last TARDIS in the universe, extinct,' he said sadly.

'We can get help, yeah?' she said.

'Where from?' the Doctor asked her.

'Well, we've landed. We've got to be somewhere,' she said.

Mickey moved away from the console and walked down the ramp.

'We fell out of the Vortex, through the Void, into nothingness,' he said, his voice went quiet and thoughtful. 'We're in some sort of no place. . .. The silent realm. . .. The lost dimension.'

'Otherwise known as London,' Mickey said from the door, stepping outside. 'London, England, Earth.'

The Doctor and Rose stepped out onto a grassy bank, with Lambeth Palace behind them, and the Thames in front. Mickey jumped down onto the pavement. 'Hold on,' he said, picking up a newspaper. 'First of February this year not exactly far flung, is it?'

'So this is London?' the Doctor asked.

'Yep,' Mickey said with a grin.

'Your city?'

'That's the one.'

'Just as we left it?'

'Bang on.'

The Doctor looked up. 'And that includes the Zeppelins?'

'What the hell?' Mickey and Rose looked up, open mouthed, watching Zeppelin airships passing overhead.

'That's beautiful,' Rose said in amazement.

Mickey tried to make sense of it. 'Okay, so it's London with a big international Zeppelin festival.'

'This is not your world,' the Doctor told them.

Mickey quickly caught on, he'd seen Star Trek. 'But if the date's the same, it's parallel, right? Am I right? Like a parallel Earth where they've got Zeppelins. Am I right? I'm right, aren't I?'

'Must be,' the Doctor agreed.

'So, a parallel world where?' Rose asked.

Mickey understood it. 'Oh, come on. You've seen it on films. Like an alternative to our world where everything's the same but a little bit different, like, I don't know, traffic lights are blue; Tony Blair never got elected….'

'And he's still alive.' Rose was staring at an advert for Vitex Lite, it was cherry flavour. Rose remembered seeing the name Vitex on large containers in her parents flat when she had gone back to see…, the man in the advert, her father, Pete Tyler. 'A parallel world and my dad's still alive.'

She walked over to the advert to get a better look, the Doctor and Mickey followed her. 'Don't look at it, Rose. Don't even think about it. This is not your world,' the Doctor told her.

'But he's my dad and….' She reached out and touched the advert, which activated it and an animated Pete Tyler puts his thumb up and says 'Trust me on this'.

'Well, that's weird,' she said. 'But he's real.'

'Trust me on this,' the advert said.

'He's a success. He was always planning these daft little schemes, health food, drinks, and stuff, everyone said they were useless, but he did it.'

The Doctor grabbed her by her arms and turned her away from the electronic advert. 'Rose, if you've ever trusted me, then listen to me now. Stop looking at it. Your father's dead, he died when you were six months old. That is not 'your' Pete; that is 'a' Pete. For all we know, he's got his own Jackie, his own Rose, his own daughter who is someone else, but not you. You can't see him. Not ever.'

The advert spoke as if to reinforce the Doctor's words. 'Trust me on this. Trust me on this. . .. Trust me on this. . .. Trust me on this . . .

* * *

Mickey managed to land Lumic's Zeppelin in Kennington Park, and the Doctor, Pete Tyler and Jake Simmonds, jumped out to tie the mooring ropes to trees and railings. Mickey and Jake went back to Battersea, to pick up the Preachers van, while the Doctor, Rose, and Pete headed for Lambeth Pier and the TARDIS.

Pete and Rose were standing on Lambeth Palace Road, outside the TARDIS; she was still wearing the maids outfit. The Doctor was inside, plugging in the power cell.

'So, what happens inside that thing, then?' Pete asked her.

'Do you want to see?' she asked, hoping that if he saw the inside, she could convince him to stay.

'No, I don't think so,' he said hesitantly. 'But you two . . . you know . . . all that stuff you said about different worlds . . . who are you?'

'It's like you say . . . Imagine there are . . . different worlds . . . parallel worlds. Worlds with another Pete Tyler and Jackie Tyler's still alive . . . and their daughter.'

Pete started to look uncomfortable as Rose looked at him longingly.

'I've got to go,' he said quickly.

'But if you just look inside,' she pleaded.

'Nah, I can't. There's all those Lumic factories out there. All those Cybermen still in storage. Someone's got to tell the authorities what happened, carry on the fight . . .'

The door of the TARDIS opened and the Doctor stepped out, jogging towards them. 'Rose? I've only got five minutes of power. We've got to go.'

'The Doctor could show you,' Rose said, desperate for her 'father' to go with them in the TARDIS.

'Thank you . . . for everything,' he said.

Rose couldn't hold back any more. 'Dad.'

That was too much for him. 'Don't. Just, just don't,' he said and quickly walked away, looking back, one last time, before disappearing into the night at a run.

Mickey and Jake walked towards them from the road, where they had parked the van. Rose didn't really see them coming, she was upset that the man who looked like her father, wouldn't even entertain the idea that she could be his daughter in another universe.

'Here it is. I found it. Not a crease,' Mickey said, handing over familiar, folded, brown clothing.

'My suit! Good man. Now then, Jake, we've got to run. But one more thing . . . Mrs Moore, her real name was Angela Price. She's got a husband out there, and children. Find them. Tell them how she died saving the world,' the Doctor ordered.

'Yeah, course I will,' he said with a boyish grin.

'Off we go, then,' the Doctor said cheerfully.

Mickey hesitated. 'Er . . . thing is, I'm staying.'

The Doctor was gob smacked. 'You're doing what?'

'You can't,' Rose said quietly. She'd just been rejected by a man who, to all intents and purpose, was her father, and now, her best friend was leaving her.

Mickey had been thinking about this since he met the double of his grandmother, Rita Anne Smith. In his world, she had tripped on a piece of loose carpet, and fallen down the stairs to her death. He always blamed himself for that, after she had been badgering him to repair the carpet, and he never did.

'It sort of balances out,' Mickey said, his voice full of emotion. 'Because this world lost it's Ricky, but there's me. And there's work to be done with all those Cybermen still out there.'

'But you can't stay,' Rose told him, her voice breaking, tears welling in her eyes.

'Rose, my gran's here . . . she's still alive . . . my old gran, remember her?

'Yeah,' she squeaked.

'She needs me.'

'What about me? What if I need you?' she cried.

'Yeah, but Rose, you don't . . .' He looked pointedly at the Doctor, almost accusingly. 'It's just you and him, isn't it . . .? We had something a long time ago, but not anymore.' They'd had this conversation yesterday morning, they'd moved on.

'Well, we'll come back . . . we can travel anywhere. Come and see you, yeah?' she said, looking to the Doctor for reassurance, but she got none.

'We can't,' he said sadly. 'I told you, travel between parallel worlds is impossible . . . We only got here by accident, we . . . we fell through a crack in time, when we leave, I've got to close it . . . we can't ever return.'

The realisation of that suddenly hit Mickey, and he looked at his heartbroken, ex girlfriend. He'd made his decision, and maybe a clean break was for the best. There would be no chance of bumping into her and stirring up old memories, old feelings.

'Doctor,' he said, holding out his hand for the Doctor to shake.

'Take Rose's phone, it's got the code. Get it out there, stop those factories,' he said seriously as he shook his hand. They stood there for a long moment, exchanging a look of understanding. 'And good luck . . . Mickey the idiot,' he said with a smile and a friendly tap on the cheek.

'Watch it,' Mickey said with a smile.

The Doctor glanced at Rose and back at Mickey, they needed to say a proper goodbye, so he turned and went into the TARDIS. They watched him go inside and then turned to face one another.

'Thanks,' Mickey said. 'We've had a laugh though, haven't we . . .? Seen it all, been there and back. Who would have thought, me and you off the old estate, flying through the stars.'

'All those years just sitting there, imagining what we'd do one day,' she cried. 'We never saw this, did we?'

Mickey blinked back tears, he was a bloke, and he couldn't let her see him cry, so he grabbed her in one last hug. 'Go on, don't miss your flight.'

Rose on the other hand, didn't care, she sobbed as she realised that she would never see him again. Without looking up, she slowly walked back to the TARDIS with a heavy heart. At the door, she took one last look at the man who was once her lover, and now, her best friend, before going in and closing the door on him for the last time.

She walked up the ramp and straight into the Doctor's arms, where she sobbed on his shoulder.

'Hey . . . hey,' he said as he rubbed her back comfortingly. 'Mickey's all right, it's a whole new world, new opportunities . . . a new life.' He pulled down the lever, and the time rotor started pumping up and down.

'Can I go home?' Rose asked quietly, and the Doctor froze. What was she asking? Did she just want to go home, or did she really WANT to go home?

She felt him tense up, and after the last few days, with all the turmoil of her emotions, and the misunderstandings, he must think that Mickey was the final straw. She pulled away slightly so that she could wipe the tears from her cheeks with her hand and look at his face.

'Just to see Mum,' she whispered. 'I need to see Mum…, to make sure she's all right, y'know, after seeing that Jackie . . .' Tears started to flow again.

'Of course . . . let's go and get changed out of these outfits, and then I'll set the coordinates.' Rose grabbed him into a hug again, and they just stood there, sharing a comforting embrace.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

 **48 Bucknall House.**

 **Powell Estate, Peckham.**

Jackie had just finished doing a wash and cut for one of her neighbours, and had seen her out the door. The money she made from hairdressing wasn't much, but it helped to supplement the benefits she relied on to pay the bills. Now Rose wasn't here, bringing in a wage, she had to tighten her belt and watch her spending.

She went into the kitchen and picked up the kettle to fill it with water, when she felt that wheezing, grinding sensation in her chest. It felt as though the whole flat were vibrating to the sound of that mad box that her daughter travelled about in. Hang on; it was in the flat, in the living room to be precise.

Jackie put down the kettle and quickly went through to the living room, where a blue, wooden box took up most of the room. The door opened, and Rose stepped out, looking at her as though she were a ghost or something.

'You're alive,' Rose said, almost in disbelief, before running forward and hugging her mother. 'Oh mum, you're alive.'

'Well, I was the last time I looked,' she said with mild amusement, and then she saw the Doctor's face. 'What is it? What's happened, Sweetheart? What's wrong? Where did you go?'

Rose couldn't speak; she was so overcome with emotion.

'Far away,' the Doctor told her quietly. 'That was…, far away.' He gazed off into the distance.

Jackie noticed that the Doctor had closed the door of the TARDIS; no one else was coming out. A knot of dread formed in her stomach. 'Where's Mickey?' she asked, dreading the answer. Was this why Rose was so upset, was Mickey…, dead?

'He's gone home,' the Doctor said, not sad, but not happy either. So not dead then, just somewhere else, what did he mean, he's gone home? After a long hug, Jackie guided Rose to the sofa and sat her down.

'I was just puttin' the kettle on, dry yer eyes Sweetheart and I'll make the tea.'

With a mug of tea in her hand, Jackie sat down and looked at them expectantly. 'Well. . .? Come on then, I'm listenin',' she said.

The Doctor and Rose, told her about Mickey's first adventure on a derelict spaceship, with repair droids and eighteenth century France. Then, how they had crashed into another universe and dealt with robots trying to steal peoples brains. They didn't mention that it was a parallel universe, with a Pete Tyler and a Jackie who had been killed.

'Oh God, you two have been lookin' for trouble again, ain't ya? No wonder you were all upset. An' what happened to Mickey then?'

'Er…, he met his….' Rose started.

'He met someone in that universe, someone he really cared about, and decided to stay,' the Doctor said. Rose looked at him and smiled, that was brilliant.

'Blimey, she must be somethin' special to make him give up everythin' here.'

Rose gave a little laugh. 'Oh, you have no idea Mum, she's amazin',' Rose said, knowing how impressed her Mum had been with Rita Anne.

'That's better Sweetheart, seein' ya laugh again, you had me worried when you first got here. An' what was all that about me bein' alive?' Jackie said.

'Oh, just ignore me, I was all upset about Mickey leavin', that's all.'

Jackie gave her a questioning look, as though she didn't believe her, but decided not to push it. 'I'll go and start the dinner then,' she said, standing up and moving towards the kitchen.

'Ah, right, well…, I'll get the TARDIS ready then,' the Doctor said, standing and reaching for the door of the TARDIS.

'I said I'm makin' dinner,' Jackie said, in a forceful tone.

He swallowed hard, and Rose tried to stifle a laugh. This alien had just defeated an army of Cybermen, and yet her mum had him trembling in his trainers.

'Right . . . shall I lay the table or something?'

Rose couldn't stifle the laugh anymore, and collapsed in a fit of giggles, as Jackie gave him a lopsided smile. 'Hang on Mum; I'll give you a hand.'

In the kitchen, Rose helped her mum prepare the vegetables and put them in pans on the stove, which looked as though it had seen better days.

'Mum, this cooker is lookin' a bit knackered.'

'I know Sweetheart, the ring at the back stopped workin' a month ago, I'm havin' to save up to replace it.'

Rose thought about this, and felt guilty again about gallivanting around the universe, wanting for nothing, while her mother struggled to make ends meet, and then she had an idea.

'Why don't you have Mickey's cooker? I mean, he's not comin' back, and it's hardly used, as he used to eat a lot of takeaways.'

'Oh I couldn't…, could I?'

'Why not? In fact we need to empty the flat an' tell the council that he's moved out,' Rose realised, a sad expression on her face.

'Well, it would be a shame to see his stuff thrown down the tip.'

'There ya go then; we can take the TARDIS over there after dinner an' clear it out.'

Rose explained to the Doctor that because Mickey wasn't coming back, they had to empty his flat so that someone else could live there.

'It's all right Rose, I might not do domestic, but I do understand the basic concept of domiciles.'

'Okay, so after dinner, can you fly us over there so we can get all his stuff?'

Oh great, more domestic!

The TARDIS materialised in the untidy living room of Mickey's flat, and Rose hesitantly stepped out, followed by her mum, and then the Doctor.

Jackie put a reassuring hand on Rose's shoulder. 'Are you all right Sweetheart?'

Rose put her knuckle up to her lips in that way that she had always done when she was uncertain about something. 'Yeah…, it just feels weird, knowin' he's never comin' back.' She started to cry again.

'Look Rose, I can do this with Jackie if you'd prefer, you could stay in the TARDIS,' the Doctor said.

Rose shook her head and looked at him with moist eyes. He could be so thoughtful and sensitive at times. 'No, I'll be all right…, I need to do this, y'know, draw a line under it, move on.'

The Doctor nodded his understanding, and Jackie squeezed her shoulder in support. 'I'll…, I'll just go through to the kitchen and disconnect the cooker,' he said, holding up his sonic screw driver.

That left Rose and Jackie to start clearing up the living room, which was a marathon job on its own. Rose picked up a motoring magazine off the coffee table and leafed through it before putting it back down. She looked over at the tatty sofa, where they'd spent many a night watching TV.

'Well, yer can leave the sofa,' Jackie said with a look of disgust. 'Ya don't know what's livin' in the back of that.'

Rose snorted a laugh. That did it, the melancholy mood was gone. 'C'mon, let's see what's worth keepin', and what the council can clear out.'

They started moving small items into the TARDIS, the television, coffee tables, stools, a phone. Every so often, Rose would find a seemingly insignificant item, and remember the history of it or the circumstances when it was acquired.

'Oh-my-God,' Jackie said as she leaned over the armchair.

'What?' Rose said, concerned. 'What have you found?'

Jackie straightened up and turned to Rose, holding up a dirty sock as though it was a biohazard (which it probably was).

'Has he not heard of a dirty linen basket?'

Rose started to laugh, a proper laugh that remembered all the good times that she'd shared with Mickey in this flat. Jackie joined her and laughed herself, dropping the sock back on the chair.

The Doctor came through with the cooker, and the fridge, the microwave and the toaster. Slowly, they emptied his flat of the most useful possessions. Rose gathered up his box files that he'd filled with UFO sightings, conspiracy theories and all the things he'd investigated since Rose had taken to travelling with the Doctor.

'A computer?' Jackie said. 'What do I need with a computer? I don't know how to use one.'

'The Doctor can set it up in the spare room for ya, an' I can show you how to use it. All yer really need to use is the web browser.'

Rose had one, last, sad look around the flat, the posters on the walls, the red 'stop' sign, the green 'go' sign, the bed…. That was hard, to look at what had been 'their' bed, and not feel the loss of her old boyfriend.

'Bye Mickey,' she whispered, and closed the bedroom door.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor was preparing for take off at the console, and looked with concern as Rose came through the door, closing it behind her, and leaning on it. She saw his concern and smiled at him, nodding in response to an unspoken question, she was going to be okay.

'Next stop, Jackie's flat,' he said as the time rotor started grinding up and down. He checked the view screen, and gave a slight frown. 'Mmmm, that's interesting…, we'll have to sort that out later,' he said, with a big smile on his face.

'What is it?' Rose asked.

'Oh, just a stray that needs catching and putting back where it belongs.'

Back in the flat, the Doctor connected up the 'new' cooker and fridge, and then fixed up the computer in the spare room.

'Don't cha need an internet connection or sommat?' Jackie asked, as she popped her head around the door.

She heard a whistling, warbling noise, and saw the Doctor putting something in his jacket pocket. 'Normally, yes, but I've given this one a bit of a super connection, it routes the signal through the TARDIS, you'll be able to surf the galactic, interworld web, and you'll be able to email and Skype each other.'

Jackie hadn't got a clue what he was on about, but Rose was over the moon. 'Oh Mum, it's brilliant, it'll be easier to keep in touch.'

'Well, I'll believe that when I see it?' she said with a smirk. Rose rolled her eyes, and gave her a big smile.

Rose and Jackie hugged a goodbye, and Rose laughed at how uncomfortable the Doctor looked when Jackie gave him a hug.

'Right, yes, thank you Jackie, got to go, aliens to catch,' he said, disentangling himself from her arms.

'It's not going to be dangerous is it?' Jackie asked, looking at Rose as a way of indicating that she wanted her kept safe.

'Nah, it's only in Woolwich, a single, hungry animal that needs taking home.'

'That's all right then,' Jackie said, as the Doctor held Rose's hand and led her into the TARDIS.

* * *

'Doctor! Doctor, the trap!' Rose called out along the corridor. They were in an old, disused warehouse, and a Hoix was on the loose.

'Where's he gone? Can you see him?' he called from another corridor.

Rose was standing at a crossroads with two, steaming plastic buckets, looking down each corridor in turn. 'There he is! Stop,' she called, as it ran across the end of the corridor. 'No! Watch out! There!' she shouted as the Doctor appeared from another corridor, nearer to her.

He looked at her, and then down the corridors to his left and his right. 'Where? Where?' He spotted it running across a corridor and set off in pursuit. Brilliant, it was heading for the rift portal manipulator that he'd set up in one of the empty rooms. If they were really lucky, they wouldn't need the buckets of sedative and stimulant if it ran directly into the portal.

The room was filled with bright light from an area inside three cones on the floor, all linked together with cables to a control box on the floor. The three cones were creating a dimensional doorway into the rift in Cardiff, which would send the Hoix back where it came from.

But of course, he wasn't lucky, of course not, he's the Doctor. The Hoix was contemplating the bright light in front of him, and the Doctor would only need to sneak behind it and push, when the door behind it opened, and a startled young man stood there in open mouthed amazement and terror.

The Doctor groaned as the Hoix started towards the young man, why are these things never straight forward? He reached into his pocket, and pulled out a piece of raw meat. 'Here boy, eat the food. Come on, look at the lovely food. Isn't that nice? Isn't it? Yes, it is,' he said in a baby talk voice.

'Get out of here, quickly,' he called to the stranger, before turning his attention to the Hoix 'That's a boy. Wouldn't you like a porky-choppy then?' If he could just entice it back towards the portal…. He saw the stranger still standing there, frozen to the spot in terror. 'I said run!'

The young man came to his senses, turned and ran towards the stairwell.

'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.' Rose came running past the stranger, carrying the steaming blue bucket, which she threw over the Hoix. The Hoix wiped the adrenalin pheromone from its face, feeling the feeding frenzy start to rise in its chest.

'Wrong one. You made it worse,' the Doctor said in disbelief.

'You said blue!' Rose shouted in accusation.

'I said not blue,' he said in his 'dribbled down your blouse' tone of voice.

The Hoix turned to look at Rose; she would make a nice meal. Rose stopped, looked at the Hoix, and realised she was on the menu. "SHIT!" she thought to herself, turned and ran away as fast as she could (and with something with that many teeth, that was very fast indeed).

The Doctor watched Rose run away with the Hoix in hot pursuit. 'Hold on!' he shouted after her. If he could go around the other way, he could head them off. He closed the door and started to run across the room and out the door he'd come in.

Unfortunately, he was right, and skidded to a halt as Rose ran past the junction, screaming as she went. The Hoix was bearing down on him now, and he gulped. He turned tail and ran down another corridor, seeing Rose run the opposite way in another corridor.

He heard Rose coming before he saw her. 'Aaaaaaaaagh…, oof!' They collided with each other.

'Where'd it go?' he asked her.

'Dunno; I was concentratin' on not gettin' eaten.'

'ROAR!'

'Ah, there it is…, run!' They started running again down another corridor together. 'At the end, split up, we'll try and confuse it.'

Rose ran right, and the Doctor went left, the Hoix, not being very bright, decided to stick with the original menu item, and followed Rose. As she turned a corner, she saw the red bucket where she had left it originally.

'Yes!' she exclaimed and grabbed the bucket, turning to face the Hoix, which skidded to a halt. It sniffed the air and detected the myotonic pheromone that would immobilize it like a rabbit in headlights, or a Tennessee goat.

It may not have been very bright, but it knew if it got that pheromone over it, it would be powerless, even to this puny, human female, so it turned around, and ran away. It ran straight towards the Doctor, who was about to turn and run when he saw Rose, close behind with the red bucket.

'Oh good girl,' he said with pride, as he ducked into a doorway to let the Hoix and Rose run past. It ran into a room where it had to stop, and Rose emptied the bucket over the alien, who then just stood there, motionless, waiting for someone to do something with it. The Doctor went back into the corridor and looked along it, he realised the young stranger was still standing there, watching them.

'Hold on. Don't I know you?' he asked him, he was sure he'd seen him before, only younger, much younger. Before he could find out though, the stranger ran down the stairs and was gone. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and went back to help Rose guide the Hoix into the dimensional doorway.

They held one arm each, as they walked the subdued Hoix down the corridor and into the bright light. The Doctor stooped down and flicked a switch on the box, shutting down the rift manipulator. The light faded, and so did the Hoix.

'Well, all-in-all, I think that went all right,' he said with a smile, as he disconnected the cones and started wrapping up the cables.

'Could'a gone better,' Rose said, wrapping up cables with him and putting the cones in the buckets. 'What was it with the buckets anyway?'

'The red one caused him to 'freeze' and become docile, the blue one was for when he was standing in the dimensional doorway, so that he'd recover quickly and not be helpless when he arrived on his home world.'

'So how come the red bucket still worked then?'

'The blue bucket reduced and shortened the effect, you probably noticed that he was able to walk on his own, we'd have had to drag him if you hadn't used the blue bucket first.'

'Oh, not too bad then,' she said with a smile, as they headed back to the TARDIS.

'Like I said, all-in-all, I think that went all right.'


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

Rose tried to scream, but no sound would come from her throat. Above the roars of the creature she thought she could hear the sound of a child laughing. Then the huge taloned hands closed around her . . . And she woke with a start, almost tumbling from the jump seat.

After chasing the Hoix in Woolwich, they'd returned to the TARDIS, and Rose remembered sitting on the jump seat, watching the Doctor tinker with the console. She must have fallen asleep, but she couldn't remember. He must have covered her with his coat at some point.

The Doctor looked up from a screen, concern in his eyes. 'Are you all right?'

Rose ran a hand through her hair, her eyes flicking around the shadows that pooled in the corners of the console room. 'Yeah, a dream, that's all. A nightmare.' She shivered, pulling the Doctor's coat around her shoulders.

'Not surprisin' really, is it? Considerin' the stuff we end up seein' . . . ' Maybe it was the close call with the Hoix that influenced her dream. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and shuffled over to where the Doctor was prodding at the console. 'What are you doin'?'

'It seems that you're not the only one who was having nightmares.' He cocked his head to one side and peered at her. 'Can you remember what your dream was about?'

'Things. Creatures . . . '

'Creatures?'

'Yeah, I was at the coast. Not a beach with sand, but lots of rocks . . . and a lighthouse. There was a storm. And a kid, a little boy who kept laughing. Then this thing came out of the sea, a big sea monster sort of thing, four arms, breathing fire. It killed a man, a fisherman, and it was startin' to turn on me . . . '

The Doctor's frown deepened. 'Well, isn't that strange.'

Rose was puzzled. 'Why? What's up with that? It was just a dream, wasn't it?'

The Doctor nodded at the screen in front of him. 'Seems like you and the TARDIS both had the same dream. We picked up some very odd readings while you were asleep. I've been tracing them back to their source.'

Rose crossed to his side, peering over his shoulder. 'Oh, my God!'

On the screen was a long stretch of rocky coast, harsh and windswept. Out in the waves was a jagged lump of black rock, the long, slender shape of a lighthouse stabbing towards the heavy clouds.

'That's the place!' Rose stared in disbelief. 'That's where I was in my dream!'

The Doctor looked up at her with a mysterious twinkle in his eyes. 'And if the place is real, then the creature might be real as well. Shall we go and take a look?'

Before Rose had a chance to answer the Doctor darted round the console, spinning wheels and pumping energetically at some of the TARDIS's more jerry-rigged controls. With a grind of ancient engines, the TARDIS started to turn, and Rose realised with a thrill of terror that quite possibly she was about to confront the creature from her nightmare.

With a rattling of the latch, the door swung inwards and the Doctor stepped out into the cold night air, coat billowing in the wind. Rose emerged tentatively after him, looking around nervously.

The Doctor spread his arms wide and took a long, deep breath. 'Come on, Rose. Get a good lungful of that fresh sea air.'

Rose pulled her parka tight around her. She was reminded of childhood holidays in Tenby with her mum. 'You'll get a great lungful of fresh sea water if you're not careful. It's freezin' out here!'

'It's a bit fresh, I'll admit.' He twirled, fixing her with a piercing gaze. 'Is this the place?'

Rose nodded, stepping closer to his side and shivering. 'Yeah. It is. The same as I saw in my dream. It's weird.'

'Marvellous!' The Doctor smiled happily, pulling the TARDIS key from his pocket and locking the police box door. Rose turned slowly around. Everything was horribly familiar. The tall, jagged cliffs, the brooding sky. Along the coast she could see the lights from the village, tucked into the curve of the bay, a tiny harbour jutting out into the cold grey sea.

A noise made her jump, a long wail, drawn out and plaintive. On the next headland over she could see the lights of a lonely farmhouse, a trail of smoke whipped from its chimney by the driving wind. She caught the Doctor by the arm. 'Listen.'

The Doctor turned from the TARDIS, head cocked to one side. The sound came again, high-pitched and almost cat-like, cutting through the sound of the wind.

Rose felt goosebumps run down her spine. 'It's a baby. Poor thing sounds terrified.'

'It's not happy, certainly.' The Doctor pulled a pair of opera glasses from his coat and peered at the lights blazing from the distant farm buildings. 'And keeping the house awake by the look of things.'

'Where are we exactly?' Rose asked.

'Wales, according to the instruments.' The Doctor swung his gaze out towards the horizon. 'West coast, just along from Tenby, I think. Village called Ynys Du.'

'Come again?' So that's why she was reminded of her holidays as a child.

'Black Island. Not the kind of place you usually find ravening four armed creatures, I must admit, but probably very good for sea bass. Ah . . . '

'What is it?'

The Doctor nodded out to sea. 'Your mysterious lighthouse?'

Rose followed his gaze. The racing clouds cleared from the moon for a moment and she could make out the tall, slender shape rising from the jagged mound of black rock in the bay.

She shivered again, though this time not from the cold. 'Yeah. That's it.'

The Doctor adjusted a small dial on the opera glasses, peering intently at the lighthouse through the computer-enhanced lenses. 'Doesn't look as though it's been used for years. Shame. Make a nice little home, that would. Tricky to get your milk delivered, but no problem with the neighbours.'

'Great if you like fish.'

'Exactly!' He lowered the glasses and turned to her. 'Where did you see the fisherman?'

Rose nodded down the cliff. A well-worn path snaked through the gorse, winding its way to an untidy jumble of rocks at the water's edge.

'Down there, on the rocks.'

The Doctor raised his opera glasses again, scanning the coast. 'No sign of any monsters . . . Hello . . . '

Rose's heart jumped. 'What is it? Have you seen it?'

'I think there's someone there.' The Doctor frowned. 'Thought I caught a glimpse of someone at the shoreline.'

'The creature?'

'Not unless it's taken to wearing a long white coat.' He tucked the glasses back into his pocket. 'Come on. Let's take a closer look.' The Doctor set off down the rocky path, his own coat billowing out behind him.

* * *

It turned out that the sleepy fishing village of Ynys Du, near Tenby, wasn't so much sleepy as nightmarish. When the children of the village slept, the monsters in their nightmares walked the streets and woods.

When the Doctor and Rose had arrived, they'd been chased through the woods by a variety of bizarre, alien looking monsters. They had taken refuge at the Red Lion pub, where Rose had befriended a young girl called Ali Hardy.

One of the locals, a woman called Bronwyn Ceredig, had told them about some strange goings on at the rectory. The following morning, the Doctor and Rose visited the rectory and met the owner, Nathaniel Morton and his assistant Miss Peyne.

They claimed to be running a nursing home, but earlier in the day, the Doctor and Rose had seen evidence that brought that claim into question. They had sneaked into a room and saw six patients, silent and motionless, faces pale even against the white of the sheets and pillows, their breathing shallow and faint.

Four men, two women: old, no, ancient, their skin almost transparent, their hair wispy and silver. Thin, positively skeletal hands rested on the blankets covering them, while needles protruded obscenely from their veins. The entire room smelt antiseptic, clinical. White-coated figures padded softly from bed to bed, adjusting tubes, peering at machines, their faces masked and anonymous.

That afternoon, the Doctor persuaded Bronwyn to take him out to the Black Island Lighthouse. There, in a cave, he'd found an alien spaceship, and in the lamp room, he'd found alien psychic transceivers which appeared to be giving the children nightmares and then giving those nightmares substance.

While he was in the lighthouse, Rose had gone back to the rectory to investigate the mysterious Nathaniel Morton and his assistant, Miss Peyne. Rose had been caught and strapped to a bed, where Miss Peyne drugged her and extracted her memories with a futuristic headset. Who ever these people were, they were good at getting inside peoples heads. Ali had bravely followed Rose into the rectory and helped her escape down the fire escape.

And now, Rose was in Bronwyn's ramshackle beachfront house, preparing to go back out to the lighthouse to try and disable the transceivers.

['Rose!']

'Doctor?' Rose sprang to her feet, looking around, surprised by the Doctor's voice. Apart from Bronwyn, Ali and Butch the guard duck the room was empty. She turned in a slow circle, puzzled. 'Where are you?'

['Strapped to a bed in the rectory. Don't ask stupid questions!'] So they'd caught him and were doing to him what they'd done to her she thought.

Realisation dawned on Rose. 'Are you in my head? Are you poking around inside my head with telepathy or somethin'?'

['Yes! Now listen.']

'I don't believe this! Aren't you meant to ask or anything before you come barging in?' He'd done something like this with Reinette, and that hadn't gone well.

['Rose, I really don't have too much time! The Cynrog got inside your dreams because their machinery operates on the same frequency that the TARDIS uses to translate languages in your head. I'm hitching a ride on the same frequencies because they've wired me into their system. They're occupied at the moment and I'm cleverer than they are, but it's taking a lot of effort and I don't have much time so I need you to shut up and listen.']

Rose sat down hard, aware of the curious looks she was getting from the others. Presumably they were only hearing one side of the conversation. She gave them an embarrassed smile.

'OK, I'm listening,' she whispered.

['Right. And don't talk, just think. Think the words.']

Rose gritted her teeth and concentrated on forming the words in her head. ['All right.'] As she concentrated on the Doctor, she felt something . . . Loneliness, such a lonely childhood. She was brought back to the present by the Doctor's voice in her head.

['Good. I know what the connection between Bronwyn and the boy is.']

['Yeah. He's her son. And you were right, his name's Jimmy.'] This was the child Rose had heard laughing in her nightmare and had been seen with the monsters.

['I'm having a chat with him now. At least, I'm with something that looks like him, something that has his memories, but it probably has a good part of something else too.']

['Hang about . . . You're with him? But they sent him away. He got adopted. It nearly finished her. Ended her marriage. It was when he was small, but that was years ago. She doesn't even know if he's still alive.']

['Yeah, well, this one is still about six.']

'OK, this is getting seriously creepy.' She realised that she had said this out loud when Ali gave her a puzzled look. Smiling embarrassedly, she forced herself to concentrate on her thoughts again.

['She blames herself. Says she was a bad mother. That she's been keeping something secret all these years, in her head. I think that's what's made her a bit, you know . . . odd.']

['Yes, well, she's got a fair chunk of an alien lodged in her brain, and not a nice one either. Must have been affecting her for years.']

['You what?']

['Doesn't matter. All you need to know is that she's got something the Cynrog don't know about. Let's keep it that way. Will she take you to the lighthouse?']

['Yeah. She's just sorting out a lifejacket for Ali.']

['Right. You're gonna have to hurry, 'cause things are going to start prowling again shortly. And there's a bit of a change with what I want you to do. Still got the sonic screwdriver?']

['Of course.']

['OK, then listen carefully.']

* * *

The Doctor stood on the lawn in front of the blazing rectory. The resurrected Cynrog warlord, Lord Balor had run amok and destroyed the alien equipment, causing it to explode and start the fire. It was a feral monster, lacking one final part of it's scattered psyche.

The Doctor closed his eyes as the razor claws reached out through the rain, waiting for the killer blow from the Cynrog monster. It never came. He opened one eye cautiously. The creature was staring at its claws, turning them this way and that. It looked down at the Doctor.

'I think I chipped a nail.'

The Doctor blinked. 'I'm sorry?'

'A nail. Look.' It held out a claw. 'And that head. Do you think it's going to be fattening? You never know with foreign food, do you?'

The creature skittered across the lawn, staring at its reflection in the tall windows of the rectory. 'Do you think I look all right in this? I'm not sure if it suits me. I'm meant to be going to Maureen's wedding next week and I'm really not convinced.'

Yes! Rose must have got Ali to the lighthouse in time. Ali had been small enough to crawl under the psychic transceiver and recalibrate it with his sonic screwdriver. Instead of the monsters being inside peoples dreams, peoples dreams were feeding back inside this monsters head.

As the Doctor watched, a flicker of energy lanced from the roof of the shattered rectory and danced around the creature's outline. Balor seemed to be shrinking. It started to scamper in circles, arms waving agitatedly.

'Oh, God. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make that mortgage payment in time. And what if I don't get that job at the chemist? He says he wants to settle down, but I know he's still seeing Pauline from the WH Smith in town. Three of Dai Williams's chickens dropped dead last week. I hope we've not got that bird flu thing here . . . '

The creature was shrinking faster and faster now, its scales fading, changing, its skin becoming pinstriped, masked, different football colours, a blur of shapes and images. The voice got more and more frantic, words blurring into each other. The Doctor could hear snatches of half-shouted fears: global warming, old age, cellulite, rent cheques, girlfriends, boyfriends, debts, affairs. The creature was a whirling blur now. And then, with a sudden pop, it vanished.

The Doctor stood in the rain in the middle of the lawn, staring at the spot where the creature had been. That was one of the finest examples of poetic justice he'd seen in a long while. Shakespeare would have loved it.

Choking clouds of black smoke billowed into the night air as more and more of the rectory succumbed to the flames. A shattering explosion sent him tumbling across the grass. That was presumably the last of the Cynrog equipment.

He picked himself up and glanced across to the wreckage of the dining room. That room too was ablaze. The husks of those people who had held the mind of Balor for most of their lives were finally free.

The last of the Cynrog technicians were rushing about in confusion. The Doctor sighed. He had work to do. He couldn't let desperate aliens wander free. He clapped his hands.

'Right, you lot. Your commander's dead, your god is gone, I'm the rightful guardian of this planet and it's time for you to sling your hook, before I get REALLY angry.'


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

The young woman lay peacefully on the stretcher, blankets tucked protectively around her. The Doctor brushed a strand of auburn hair gently from her forehead.

The woman's eyelids flickered open briefly to reveal sparkling grey eyes. The Doctor smiled at her. She caught hold of his hand and squeezed it. 'Thank you,' Bronwyn whispered. 'For setting me free.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Your boy set you free. Your Jimmy. He showed me what you had seen. What I needed to do.'

Bronwyn smiled. 'He was such a good boy.'

'Who loved his mother. Always.'

A hurrying paramedic manoeuvred the Doctor firmly to one side, catching hold of the stretcher's handles. His colleague took the other end and they hoisted Bronwyn off the beach and into the waiting ambulance.

The Doctor closed the doors behind them and watched as the ambulance roared off through the village, lights whirling. Bronwyn's rejuvenation had been an unexpected bonus. As he had hoped, Ali's readjustment of the Cynrog transceivers had tapped into the fears and neuroses of the adults of Ynys Du, not the children. Instead of fantastic monsters, the nightmares were of a far more mundane nature.

'Tainted by the trivia of the real world,' as Peyne had put it. Without the imagination of the children to sustain it, the monster had simply ceased to exist.

He glanced up at the smudge of grey smoke that trailed into the blue sky from the cliff top. The fire in the rectory had raged all night. There would be no traces of the Cynrog machinery by now. He crossed to where Rose sat on the sea wall, shaking her head in disbelief. Ali was perched next to her.

'I just came down the stairs and she was sitting there, fast asleep.'

'How did old Bronwyn become pretty again?' Ali had her head cocked to one side, squinting at the Doctor.

He tried to look casual. 'Well, the Cynrog transceivers were still working flat out until the moment they blew up. As soon as the monster was finally solid, they were designed to switch frequencies and suck the life force out of you lot to rejuvenate Mr Morton and his friends. When Peyne started to triangulate on Bronwyn's psychic signature, looking for the final piece of Balor, the machinery somehow got its polarity reversed. Instead of rejuvenating Morton and the others, it look their life force and rejuvenated Bronwyn instead.'

Ali frowned and nudged Rose. 'Does he always talk like that or do you get him to speak English sometimes?'

Rose laughed. 'Nah, he's always like this.'

'Of course, the machinery was also operating on similar frequencies to the TARDIS, so there's a possibility that she had a hand in it somewhere . . . '

'The TARDIS . . . ' Rose looked at him quizzically.

'Yeah, well, she does like to . . . interfere sometimes.'

'Right. I wonder where she gets that from.'

'I'll tell you another thing . . . ' The Doctor hopped up on to the wall next to Rose, whispering into her ear. 'Bronwyn's pregnant.'

'No way? Another Jimmy?'

'Could be.'

'But isn't everything gonna just start up all over again? Doesn't she still have a bit of that Balor thing inside her mind?'

'Not any more.' The Doctor tapped the side of his head. 'In here. Ooh, nasty little bit it is, all buzzy and angry like a big wasp. Gonna have to give myself a mental enema when we get back to the TARDIS.'

'Eeergh!' Rose and Ali both grimaced.

'Come on, Ali!' The Doctor bounded off the wall, catching her by the hands. 'Rose and I have got equipment to strip out of a lighthouse and some Cynrog to send on their way, and I want to buy you an ice cream before we go.'

Bob Perry, the harbour master had marshalled a number of the local fishermen to take the Doctor, Rose, and the Cynrog prisoners over to the lighthouse. As the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to dismantle the transceivers, the fishermen carried them down to the cave, where Rose placed them inside the spaceship, alongside the sleeping Cyngog.

Back in the village, the Doctor came out of the local shop carrying three ice cream cones that he's bought . . . well, technically, Rose had bought them as she'd given him the money.

He crouched down and offered one to Ali. 'Why don't you go and round up your mates and take them to the cliff top? I think you're in for a treat when that ship takes off.'

Ali took the ice cream and hugged him around the neck. She turned to Rose, and Rose lifted her into a rocking hug. 'Will I see you again?'

'I hope so,' Rose said, smiling at Ali's parents as she hugged her. She put her down and gave her a little wave before Ali ran off to find her friends.

'We can give you a ride to where ever you need to go,' Ali's father Mervyn told them.

'Oh, brilliant,' the Doctor said. 'Time we were on our way then.'

Dai Barraclough puffed and panted as he took the final few steps on to the cliff top. 'What have you dragged us all the way up here for, Hardy?'

Ali glared at him. 'I told you. I've got something special to show you.'

'It'd better be worth it.'

'Shut up, Dai.' Billy Palmer threw him an angry glare. 'If Ali says it's special, then it'll be special.'

Ali smiled at him. She liked Billy Palmer.

The rest of the gang were squatted down on the grass at the cliff edge, staring out at the jagged rocks of Black Island. The sun was high in the sky, sending silver highlights dancing over the waves. A fresh breeze blew in from the sea, swaying the tall grass and flecking the rocks far below with foam.

'What are we looking for, Ali?' asked one of the twins.

Ali glanced at her watch. 'You'll see. Any moment now . . . '

With a loud rumble, something emerged from behind the lighthouse in a blaze of light, a silver shape skimming over the water before lifting higher and higher into the blue sky.

The children watched open-mouthed as it curved above them and then, with a flare of dazzling light, streaked away towards the horizon, the roar of its engines sending seagulls shrieking into the brilliant blue.

Ali shielded her eyes from the sun and smiled.

The big Range Rover drove over the cliff top and pulled up in front of the out-of-place blue wooden box. Mervyn and Beth looked at the streak of light, open mouthed as the climbed out of the car.

Beth Hardy handed a carrier bag of clothes to Rose as she climbed out. 'They're dry now, but I haven't had chance to wash them.'

Rose had almost forgotten that she was wearing Beth's joggers and sweatshirt. When she'd escaped from the rectory, she'd gotten soaked and covered in mud. 'Oh, that's fine. I can get my mum to wash them when I go home.'

Beth looked up to the sky. 'And where is that, home I mean?' Thinking that they came from the stars.

'Peckham,' she said with a laugh. 'I'm a London girl. It's the driver who's from out of town so to speak.'

Rose turned to the Doctor, and held out her half eaten ice cream. 'Here, hold on to this and I'll go and get changed so I can give her joggers back.'

'You don't have to . . .' Beth said, but Rose had already stepped inside the TARDIS.

Mervyn held out his hand and the Doctor juggled the two ice creams so that he could shake his hand. 'Thank you Doctor . . . for everything.'

'Don't mention it,' he said with a smile. 'No, really. Don't mention it.'

Beth pulled him into a hug and kissed him on the cheek. 'Thank you.'

Rose emerged from the TARDIS wearing a denim mini skirt, white trainers, and blue T-shirt. She handed the grey joggers back in the carrier bag.

'What is that?' Mervyn asked, 'some kind of travelling wardrobe?'

Rose laughed and gave him a hug and kiss on the cheek. 'Somethin' like that, yeah.'

She hugged and kissed Beth and then took the ice cream back off the Doctor, sucking at the top of it, before running her tongue around her lips.

'We'll be off then,' said the Doctor, not really liking long goodbyes.

Rose waved from the door. 'See ya,' she said and stepped inside. She walked up the ramp to join the Doctor at the console. They stood there, eating their ice cream cones, watching on the scanner screen as the silver shape of the Cynrog ship slowly made its way out of orbit, accelerating away from the Earth.

'You've sent them back to their war, then?' Rose sounded disapproving.

'Yeah, but by the scenic route.'

'How scenic?'

'Oh . . . about . . . forty or fifty parsecs out of their way. Should take them a couple of years at that speed.'

'A couple of years.' Rose looked shocked. 'Can they survive that long in that sardine tin?'

'Course they can! Lovely little stasis capsules in that thing. They'll sleep all the way home! Mind you . . . ' He tailed off.

'What?'

'They might have a few bad dreams on the way.'

'Dreams?' Rose raised a quizzical eyebrow.

'Well, nightmares if you want to be strictly accurate. Just enough to ensure that they won't fancy coming back.'

'Oh yeah, and what do creatures like the Cynrog have nightmares about?'

The Doctor just smiled. They would dream of fire and ice and rage, night and storms in the heart of stars. Ancient, eternal beings, burning at the centre of time, seeing the turn of the universe.

Rose finished her ice cream, and remembered that there was something she needed to do in her room. The Doctor noticed that her mood was sad and melancholy.

She sat on her bed, looking hesitantly at the cardboard box next to her. It said "Walkers Ready Salted" on the side, but she knew that wasn't what was inside. It contained her items that she'd collected from Mickey's flat.

Chasing a Hoix in a Woolwich warehouse, and running from monsters in a Welsh town had helped her forget that she would never see Mickey again. But after the post adrenalin rush, the memories would always come back.

She took a deep breath, and let out a long sigh, picked up the box, put it on her lap, and opened the lid. She started rummaging through the contents when there was a gentle knock at the door.

'Come in,' she called. She knew who it was, there was only one other person in the TARDIS.

The Doctor's dishevelled hair, followed by his concerned face, peeped around the door. 'Are you all right?'

'Yeah, fine.' She patted the bed next to her in an invite for him to sit down. 'I was just sortin' through my stuff from Mickey's flat.'

She took out make up items, deodorants and perfume, a toothbrush. She stopped and looked at a photograph of them taken one Christmas at her mum's flat, wearing paper hats, and obviously having a great time. It reminded her of her last Christmas, when they were all together.

She reached into the box again and pulled out a sexy black bra and matching knickers, which she quickly put behind her and sat on them, blushing at the Doctor's appreciative gaze. At the bottom of the box, was one last item, a simple note off the cork board in the kitchen.

It was just a simple shopping list, from before Christmas she thought. "Bread, milk, peanut butter, beer, Rose's perfume". He had bought her perfume for Christmas, even though he didn't know if she was ever coming back. That simple note told her that he was thinking about her when she was away, and she treasured it.

The Doctor put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him, grateful of his comforting support. He cleared his throat and smiled at her. 'I came in to tell you that the TARDIS has found somewhere nice and sunny. So when you're done, slap the sun block on and we'll go and have a look.'

'I'm done here,' she said, putting the box on the floor. 'Let's go.'

Engines rasping like a giant's dying breaths, the TARDIS forced itself into existence in the middle of a crop field. It grew solid only slowly, as if exhausted by its long voyage through time and space. Finally, there it stood, improbable and serene under the baking sun – an old fashioned police box, like a big, blue blot on reality.

But if the incredible craft seemed a little worn out, its owner was most definitely not. He sprang from the box with the grace of a gangly gazelle, eyes wide and dark, brown hair bouncing over his brow. He grinned at the sight of the tall, fleshy plants pressing all around, then shook one by the leaves as if introducing himself. He puffed out his cheeks. 'Flaming hot, isn't it? Quite literally. Sauna in the Sahara sort of hot.'

He struggled out of his brown pinstriped jacket and flung it through the open TARDIS doors – just as Rose came out. She dodged aside yet still caught the jacket with the casual air of one who spends most of their life ducking whatever fate might throw their way.

'Thanks for that, Doctor,' she said, smoothing out the fabric.

'Rose Tyler!' He gave her a crooked smile of appreciation.

'You really are something special, aren't you? Help me save the universe every other day, make sure we never run out of milk – and even offer a quality clothes-care service!'

'Don't thank me till you hear how much I charge.' Rose smiled sweetly back and tossed his pinstripes on to the TARDIS floor. 'It's boiling out here.' She smoothed down her light blue T-shirt so that it covered the waistline of her short denim skirt. 'Where are we this time?'

'Not sure,' the Doctor admitted, rolling up his grey shirtsleeves. 'Lots of weird alien static about when we dropped out of space-time. Whole area's polluted. Clogged the sensors.'

'So this is a planet that sees a lot of space traffic, then?' She stepped out and looked round at the rows of towering crops, listening to the way they rustled in the warm wind. 'Seems quiet enough. These plants are weird, though. Kind of like fat corn.'

'Sort of,' the Doctor agreed, taking hold of a fleshy leaf and tearing it. A gloopy liquid oozed out. 'Allo, allo! Or rather, Aloe barbadensis. Aloe vera!'

'Don't call me Vera,' she said with her cheeky, tongue between the teeth grin.

'Ha, ha. Oh, but its lovely stuff. Good old aloe vera. Good for the skin, and great for sunburn.' He glanced reproachfully at the blinding sun, smeared some of the ooze on the back of his neck and set off along the nearest line of crops. 'So, high-yield corn that also produces aloe vera, what does that tell you?'

Rose closed the TARDIS doors and hurried along after him. 'That this planet sells magic seeds?'

'That here be humans – probably future humans. Or at least, future human plants. Could be a colony? Dunno, though.' He stopped and jumped up and down on the dry soil. 'Feels like Earth. Earthish, anyway. Thought we were in the neighbourhood. . . '

'But what about the alien pollution stuff?' Rose asked, sniffing the air. 'Has everyone got their own spaceship in this time?'

'Seems to me –'

'Don't move,' snapped a low, warning voice close by.

'As I was saying. . . ' The Doctor held obligingly still as gun barrels pushed out from both sides of the foliage, and glanced ruefully at Rose. 'Seems to me we're in something nasty and smelly – but probably very good for the crops here.'

* * *

'All I wanted was the sun on my legs,' Rose muttered to herself as she climbed the lava chimney out of Mount Tarsus. She could see the young crop inspector, Basel climbing above her.

'Benidorm would have done,' she continued to mumble. Below them were lava tubes full of bats, vultures, dogs, and monstrous insects covered in an alien, golden metal that turned them into golems.

'And where do I end up? Caves under a volcano in Chad. . . typical!'

'You all right up there?' the Doctor's cheery voice called up to her.

'Yeah, brilliant thanks,' she called sarcastically. Her sprained ankle was throbbing. "And he gets an eyeful of my knickers again," she thought to herself as she remembered clinging to a rope ladder under Lumic's air ship in the parallel universe, wearing a short, maids uniform.

It could have been worse though. One of their group, Chief Overseer, Solomon Nabarr had been smothered by the liquid golden metal and "sucked" through the opening to the cave.

It reminded Rose of the liquid metal robot in the Terminator II film. The Doctor told them it was Valnaxi magma form, a sort of burglar alarm, booby trap, defence mechanism all rolled into one.

A hand reached down to her, and she grabbed it. Basel pulled her up, and she scrabbled into the uncomfortably hot night air. The Doctor's unruly haired head popped out of the hole, and he climbed to his feet.

'Look at them,' breathed Rose.

Rose, Basel and the Doctor stood close together in silence, staring out over the grounds of the agri-unit. From here, high up in the foothills, Rose could see that all golems great and small had gathered together.

The bats smothered the crags and slopes of the foothills. Insects in their millions formed a shimmering, molten pond in the main concourse. Men and birds and rangy dogs, all gleaming gold in a sinister phalanx, waited in silence. A sense of dread anticipation carried through the night.

'They're in formation,' the Doctor realised. 'Privates on parade. That's why the golem-bats and their animal mates didn't follow us through the caves, why they only left a skeleton guard for us. They can sense it.'

'Sense what?' Rose asked him.

'Something's coming. Something they stand a chance of beating only if they all work together.' He looked at her, eyes dark and soulful. 'I think war's going to break out tonight.'

'Hey. What the hell is that?' Basel was pointing to a glowing blue light, higher up in the crags, a few hundred metres away. The glow became green as they watched.

The Doctor stared. 'Sub-orbital landing beacon, by the look of it.'

'Thought so,' said Rose, deadpan. 'What does it do?'

'It guides down spaceships.' The Doctor was already setting off towards it. That's what the golems are waiting for. Trouble is coming down from the sky. Big trouble.'

'Trouble, Doctor?' Jaxamillian Faltato came clattering over the lip of the crag, rubbing his pincers together, his five eyes glinting silver in the moonlight. 'You don't know the meaning of the word.'

They had met this alien in the tunnels below. It was some sort of intergalactic art thief, which Rose thought had too many legs, too many arms, too many eyes, and too many tongues. And if he thought that the Doctor didn't know the meaning of the word trouble… well, he didn't know the Doctor at all.

'Not him again,' said Basel, shrinking back. Rose took his hand and squeezed it.

'So what are you doing?' the Doctor enquired. 'Bringing down your getaway vehicle, ready to stash the loot?'

'As if you're not after the treasures yourself!' Faltato retorted.

'He's not!' said Rose.

'Why else would you be right here, right now, unless you'd been following our progress from warren to warren?' Faltato sneered. 'Each Valnaxi art warren contains coded directions to find the next – and I have decrypted those pointing the way to the final warren correctly!'

He clapped his pincers together. 'All those great works – the _Lona Venus_ , _The Flight of the Valwing_ , _The Shriek_. . . Lost for thousands of years – and located by me.'

'How many Valnaxi strongholds have you raided?' the Doctor demanded.

'Does it matter?' Faltato said airily.

'They lost the war, their planet, their spirit. Their eternal muse, the key to their artistry – shattered by their enemies and turned into a rancid squat.'

'They lost everything,' agreed Faltato. 'Their holdings and acquisitions are forfeit – along with their existence.'

'But you've opened a proper little Pandora's box, haven't you?' The Doctor stabbed a finger down at the gathered golems. 'The Valnaxi defences have been triggered. People have _died_ , animals have –'

'Oh, don't be foolish.' The creature's legs brushed and bristled together as he gave a theatrical shrug. 'I hardly designed the defence mechanism, did I? Anyway, there'll be a lot more dead by the time my sponsors are finished here.'

'Sponsors?' The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and wielded it like a weapon. 'Who's in that spaceship? Who's coming?'

'You'll see.' Faltato slapped out his tongue and lashed the sonic from the Doctor's hand. 'They'll want to meet you, I'm sure.'

'Give that back!'

'They take a dim view of tomb robbers trying to steal their treasures.'

'Theirs?' The Doctor gaped. 'Theirs by what right?'

'By right of conquest!' Faltato snapped, slipping the screwdriver into the pocket of his immaculate suit jacket.

'Oh. My. God.' Rose felt her blood run cold. A dark undulating shape had resolved itself from out of the starry indigo overhead. It was like staring up at the vast, fleshy underbelly of some huge, segmented creature that had come crawling out of the crevices of deepest space. And it was plummeting to earth at an alarming rate. 'What is that?'

'It's a spaceship,' said the Doctor.

'This ain't even happening,' said Basel in a small voice. 'No way.'

Rose wished she could agree. 'Never seen a spaceship like that before.'

'I have.' The Doctor looked at Faltato, pursed his lips. 'So they're your sponsors? Suppose it makes sense. Not happy with wiping out the Valnaxi, they're coming to crush whatever was left behind.'

'Who are?' Rose asked, frowning. But suddenly huge, puckering mouths opened up in the quivering base of the thing. They spat out thick, foul-smelling muck at an incredible rate, and Rose and Basel almost gagged. In a matter of seconds, two entire crop fields were buried beneath a mountain of the stuff. 'The TARDIS,' she breathed. 'Doctor, the TARDIS is under there!'

The strange ship squelched down, using the muck mountain to cushion its impact. A shudder passed through the ranks of the golems. Rose stared transfixed as the sides of the muck-mountain began to shake. Piles of manure were knocked clear and crumbled down the stinking slopes.

Then suddenly the mud was alive with dozens of huge, monstrous shapes, squirming, writhing, forcing their way through. Each was the size of a baby elephant, with a pale, glistening, segmented body like a giant earthworm – Rose couldn't tell where the neck ended and the head began, there were no discernible features.

They wore strange suits of crumbling white armour round their Wiggling torsos, with special attachments on their stubby arms. As they coiled and slithered down the mudslide, she could see no legs, only the fat, muscular lower body, raw pink segments rippling.

'What are those things?' Basel croaked.

'They're called Wurms,' said the Doctor. 'Fought the Valnaxi across seventeen star systems.'

Rose shook her head. 'Just for that one planet?'

'They'd already taken its neighbours. It was perfectly placed for the Wurms to expand their empire out into space – or for their opponents to land a bridgehead and expand into Wurm territory. They couldn't just leave it alone in case someone else conquered it. . . ' He shrugged. 'It was something like that, anyway. They probably forgot themselves after the first few centuries of war.'

'The Wurms forget nothing,' said Faltato. 'They have crushed the Valnaxi's last efforts to resist and now they will seize the final spoils.'

At the sight of the Wurms, the golems pressed forwards, screeching, roaring and howling towards the enormous mud pile and the writhing invaders.

'So Africa becomes the final battleground,' the Doctor murmured, as the carnage and chaos began.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

Rose went out to join the Doctor beside the smelly but salvaged TARDIS, free of the mud mountain at last. Through a yellow-grey cloud of volcanic smoke, the African sun was starting to set behind the shattered peak of Mount Tarsus.

The Doctor had activated the propulsion units of the Valnaxi ship which had lain hidden under the volcano for two thousand years. The warring Valnaxi and Wurms had been propelled into space with no guidance or navigation systems, courtesy of a certain Time Lord.

The sun shining through the smoky pail may have been a beautiful sight – but the Doctor had eyes only for his police box.

'You gonna wash it, then?' Rose wondered. 'It's well mucky.'

He considered. 'There's an Oulion rocket-wash opening on Titan in 900 years' time. Pretty reasonable rates, as I recall.'

'And what about this place in 900 years' time?' she asked.

Director of Development, Edet Fynn had sacrificed himself to save the Doctor and the anti-golem serum he had created. Fynn's dream had been to feed the people of Africa, using a fungus grown in the lava tubes. His motives may have been honourable, but his ethics were far from ideal, having used dead bodies to grow the fungus. And now, with his work lost to the world would Africa starve?

The Doctor wasn't worried though; he'd seen the future. 'Year 3000?' He grinned. 'Middle of Africa's third golden age.'

'So it's gonna be goodbye to the Third World, then?'

He nodded. 'With a little help from a fourth.' He was referring to the Wurms, who ironically, were preparing to lay waste to the planet.

Rose frowned. 'You don't normally like that. I mean, nicking alien technology and stuff –'

'Oh, it's only mud! Anyway, it's always going on – fact of life,' he said dismissively. The mud that the Wurm ship had excreted to use as a landing platform, turned out to be a very effective fertiliser that produced an eightfold increase in crop yields.

'Is it better that the Henry van Stattens of this world get their hands on it every time? Nah, let the little people have a go. Let them grow big, 'cos their dreams are even bigger.'

He looked out at the sunset himself for a while. Then he opened the TARDIS doors and she walked into the welcoming sea-green coolness of the control room. The Doctor banged the doors shut behind them and was soon tugging away at the console's switches and levers.

'What about those two Valnaxi? You're just going to leave them here on Earth?'

'Africa's been their home longer than anywhere else.'

She shivered. 'One of them looks like me, though . . .' She and Solomon had been covered in the golden magma form, but instead of being turned into golems, they had been a template, a mould for the Valnaxi to reinvent themselves so that the Wurms wouldn't recognise them.

'Maybe more than just looks,' he said distantly. 'When they sifted through you for the template . . .'

'What?'

'Oh, I dunno . . .' He looked pensive for a moment. 'They get one chance, that's all. But I think they'll be OK.'

'You hope,' said Rose.

'What's wrong with travelling hopefully?' He gave her a beguiling grin. 'I've turned it into an art form . . .' He threw the final switch and the TARDIS heaved itself into the time vortex.

He watched the time rotor pump up and down for a few seconds before speaking again. 'I nearly lost hope back there . . . in the Valnaxi ship.'

Rose walked around the console to hold his hand. 'Why, what happened?'

He turned his head to look into her concerned, hazel eyes. 'The Valnaxi showed me the copies of you and Solomon, all mutated and broken. I thought I'd lost you. I thought you'd be living as a golem for the rest of your life.'

Rose pulled him into a reassuring hug. 'Hey, ya don't get rid of me that easily,' she said light heartedly. 'Don'tcha remember what I said? You're stuck with me mister.'

He gave her his boyish smile. 'Gonna run my fingers through your long blonde hair, squeeze you tighter than a grizzly bear.' He wobbled his leg, threw his head back, and curled his lip. 'Uh-uh-uh, yes-sir-ee, uh, uh. I'm gonna stick like glue. Stick, because I'm stuck on you.'

Rose laughed at his antics. 'Was that supposed to be Elvis?'

'Yep. Released in April 1960 after he came out of the army. It went straight to number one.' He frowned, and then his eyes and mouth went wide. 'Oh! Oh.' He smacked his forehead with his palm. 'How could I have missed that?'

'What?' Rose asked worriedly. Had he missed something about the Wurms or the Valnaxi? 'What is it?'

'You know the musical mystery tour that we did a few weeks ago.'

Rose looked puzzled. 'Yeah, I loved it, what about it?'

'Elvis! We never went to see Elvis.'

'Elvis, the King? Oh wow! You're right, we haven't seen him yet.'

'Well then, let's put that right, cheer us up a bit, eh?'

'Yeah, but not lookin' like this eh?' She held her arms out and looked down at herself. Her once white trainers were now a mucky grey and brown. Her bare legs and arms were scratched and bruised. Her denim skirt and light blue T-shirt were covered in dried mud and Wurm snot.

The Doctor hadn't fared much better. 'Okay, first stop, the Medi-bay. Let's get us fixed up.' She took his hand, and they wandered out of the console room. 'Then we can hit the showers, get dressed up and head back to the good old U.S of A to see the king.'

'When, what period of his career?' she asked, all excited now.

'1950's, definitely 1950's, that was his hey day, and I know how you like to dress up.'

'Brilliant! I can't wait.'

She walked into the console room two hours later, wearing pink heels, a pink dress, with layers of tulle, a short, blue jacket, and a pink hair band . . . oh, and a broad smile.

'Ooh, look at you, you fifties mod chick you,' the Doctor said, grinning at her, as he prepared the TARDIS for landing in New York.

'And you,' she laughed. 'How many gallons of gel did you use to get that mop of hair under control?'

The Doctor looked up at his Teddy boy quiff and smiled at her. 'Do you like it?' he asked as he landed the TARDIS.

'Yeah, it suits you. I don't think I've seen you with your hair styled before.' She walked down the ramp towards the doors.

'I thought we'd be going for the Vegas era, you know the.. white flares and the . . . grr, chest hair,' she said as she stepped out of the TARDIS.

'You are kidding, aren't you?' he said, popping his head around the door. 'You want to see Elvis; you go for the late fifties, the time before burgers.' He disappeared back inside the TARDIS, Rose had a little laugh.

'When they called him the Pelvis and he still had a waist. What's more, you see him in style,' he carried on from inside.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a motor scooter starting up, and it sounded as though it was coming from inside the TARDIS. Rose looked around in amazement as the Doctor drove a blue scooter out of the TARDIS and pulled up in front of her, wearing a white crash helmet and aviator sunglasses.

'You going my way, doll?' he said in an Elvis voice.

'Is there any other way to go, daddy-o?' she replied in an attempt at an American accent, and putting on a pair of pink sunglasses. 'Straight from the fridge, man.'

'Ah, you speak the lingo,' he said in surprise, tossing her a pink crash helmet.

'Oh well, me, mum, Cliff Richard movies . . .' she climbed on the back of the scooter. '. . . Every Bank Holiday Monday.'

'Ah, Cliff . . . I knew your mother'd be a Cliff fan.' He throttled the scooter and they sped off down the road.

'Where we off to?' she shouted in his ear.

'Ed Sullivan TV Studios. Elvis did Hound Dog on one of the shows. There were loads of complaints. Bit of luck, we'll just catch it.'

'And that'll be TV studios in, what . . . New York?'

'That's the one.'

At that point, a red London bus drove past the end of the street. They pulled up by a red post box and noticed lots of Union Flag bunting strung between the houses.

Rose looked around and laughed. 'Ha! Digging that New York vibe.'

'Well, this could still be New York,' he said, unconvincingly. The TARDIS had done it again. 'I mean, this looks very New York to me. Sort of Londony New York, mind.'

'What are all the flags for?'

* * *

'Right, this is definitely October 28th, 1956?' Rose asked him, leaning on the console, and reading the history of Elvis's second appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Yep, and we are in the backstage area of the Ed Sullivan Theatre, 1697 to 1699 Broadway, between West 53rd and West 54th, in the Theatre District in Manhattan. Latitude: 40.7142700, Longitude: -74.0059700.

'Right, shut down the console NOW!' Rose said; she looked up at the time rotor. 'Sorry girl, but I want to meet Elvis, and last time we tried, I had my face stolen by some mad woman in the TV.'

The Doctor closed down the console, and held out his hand for her. 'No mad, face stealing aliens this time doll, ready to meet the King?' he said in his Elvis voice.

'Right on, daddy-o.' She laughed, took his hand, and skipped down the ramp to the doors.

Outside, the backstage area was a hive of activity, with people wearing headphones, carrying clipboards, and generally looking stressed. In the melee of studio staff, it was easy for them to find their way into the audience.

'Is that Ed Sullivan then?' Rose whispered, as she watched the show. 'He seems a bit awkward and uncomfortable in front of the camera.'

'That was part of his appeal . . . a kind of 'car crash' television.'

The show progressed, and it was time for Elvis and the Jordanaires to do their stuff.

'You know I can be found, sitting home all alone, if you can't come around, at least please telephone. Don't be cruel to a heart that's true,' he sang, as he started performing 'Don't Be Cruel'.

The Doctor was watching the monitors, and noticed that the cameras were filming Elvis from the waist up; Sullivan had said he would use camera shots to censor his pelvic gyrations.

'I'll be back in a minute,' the Doctor said, and before Rose could say anything, he'd gone.

The Doctor edged his way through the crowd to one of the cameras, which were broadcasting live, and covertly took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. The faint whistling warble was hardly audible above the noise of the audience and the performers, and slowly, on the monitor, Elvis's gyrations became visible.

The Doctor performed the operation on the other cameras, before making his way back to Rose.

'Watcha been up to?' she asked him suspiciously.

He nodded to the monitors. 'Just ensuring the King gets the coverage he deserves. Without seeing his controversial movements, he wouldn't have made such an impact on the viewing audience.'

'An' God, can he move,' Rose said, all dreamy eyed.

Elvis performed his second number, 'Love Me Tender' before Sullivan came and stood next to him to do a piece to camera. Elvis, buoyed by the success of his performance, was in a playful mood, and kept shaking his leg, which got cheers and squeals from the audience. When Sullivan looked around, Elvis was just standing there, innocently smiling at him.

Later in the show he sang 'Love Me', and then an extended version of 'Hound Dog', which brought the house down with the raw energy of his performance.

Back in the TARDIS, Rose was still dreamy eyed, as she remembered the show, and how the Doctor had got them backstage with the psychic paper to meet him in person. 'Mr Presley, there are a couple of reporters from London, England, who would like to do an interview with you', one of the studio staff had said, knocking on his dressing room door.

'Oh he was so cute,' Rose said to the Doctor, as he adjusted the controls.

'He was certainly a charmer,' the Doctor said, grinning at her. 'What was it he said? 'You've got to be one of the prettiest reporters I've seen',' he said in his Elvis voice.

'Are you jealous?' she teased. 'You are ain'tcha?'

'Hey, just be glad Jack wasn't there,' he teased, and Rose burst into laughter.

'Anyway, if you think he was cute, do you want to see him 'smoulder'? His third performance was 'sex on legs' apparently.'

'Cor, not 'alf,' she said with a wicked smile.

The Doctor took them back to the Ed Sullivan Theatre on January 6th, 1957, and the TARDIS didn't argue. They knew their way now around the studio, and made their way into the audience again. They started watching the show impatiently, waiting for the King to appear.

Rose wasn't disappointed. Elvis stepped out in the outlandish costume of a pasha; he was playing Rudolph Valentino in _The Sheik_ , with all stops out, from the make-up over his eyes, the hair falling in his face, to the overwhelmingly sexual cast of his mouth.

He performed a medley of 'Hound Dog', 'Love Me Tender', and 'Heartbreak Hotel', followed by a full version of 'Don't Be Cruel'. For a second set later in the show he did 'Too Much' and 'When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again'. For his last set he sang 'Peace in the Valley'.

The Doctor looked at her with raised eyebrows and grinned; she was a fan. Fifty years after this event, Elvis had still got it; he really was a class act.

* * *

The next morning, Rose was humming and singing 'Houndog' in the shower, using her bottle of shower gel as a microphone, and gyrating her hips as she did so. When she went into the kitchen, she was humming 'Love Me Tender'.

'Never let me go. You have made my life complete, and I love you so,' she sang, absent minded, and not really registering how apt the words were.

She took some bread out of the bread bin and put it in the toaster, and reached the marmalade out of the cupboard.

'I'll be yours through all the years . . .' she continued, and a voice joined with hers. '. . . till the end of time.' She closed the cupboard door, and the Doctor was standing there, grinning at her.

'Gets inside your head, doesn't it?'

'Yeah, I've been hummin' those tunes in the shower, they're great.'

The toaster went 'ping', and the slices popped up.

'Breakfast?' she said with a smile, holding up the jar and a knife.

'Mmm, sounds great.'

After an enjoyable breakfast, the Doctor took them on a wild and exciting comet chase, which unfortunately played havoc with the TARDIS navigational systems. While they waited for the systems to reset themselves, the Doctor lifted a floor grating and produced a small-suitcase-sized box.

'Picked this up in the far future,' he explained, as he placed the fold-out snooker set on the floor in the console room. 'Retrogaming was really big in the fifty-eighth century.' Rose watched, amazed, as the Doctor opened the case, which, impossibly, unfolded itself to become the entire snooker table, the balls and the cues.

'How does it all fit in that little box?' she asked.

The Doctor just winked at her. 'Hard light compression,' was his baffling reply.

'You what?'

'You really don't want to know,' he said as he framed up the balls and handed her a cue. 'Ladies first.'

Rose placed the cue ball on the table, and leaned over, resting her chin on the cue to line up the shot. Thwack! The cue ball struck the triangle of coloured balls, and sent them rolling in different directions.

They took it in turns to pot the balls in the designated pockets, teasing each other and exchanging tales of past matches they had played. Rose thought wistfully about evenings with Mickey down the local pub on the estate, where they had enjoyed games of pool.

'Mercury in the side pocket,' announced the Doctor with confidence.

Rose just laughed. 'You can't – you can't get near Mercury without goin' through Jupiter.'

The Doctor grinned and wiggled his eyebrows at her before approaching the snooker table to take his shot. Holding the cue behind his back – in his best showman style – he took careful aim. Thwack! The cue slid forward and kissed the cue ball, which shot off in the opposite direction, flying away from the ball the Doctor had called.

As Rose watched, open-mouthed, the white ball bounced off one cushion, then another, before heading directly towards the brown 'Mercury' ball. It completely missed the yellow ball that represented Jupiter. After a display like that, Rose wasn't surprised when the Mercury ball responded by rolling, ever so gently, into the side pocket that the Doctor had nominated.

'Right – just the Earth, then, and you'll have to concede,' said the Doctor, smiling, and took aim again.

The blue-green ball representing Earth was actually a perfect model of the planet. Rose had held it up to the light and seen all the landmasses marked in miniature.

'If I just hit it round about California . . .' The Doctor leaned over the table and lined up his shot. Click! The Earth ball went spinning into the pocket. 'Game over! I thought you were meant to be good at this?'

'I am,' retorted Rose, annoyed. 'But where I come from we play snooker with reds and colours, not planets.'

The Doctor grinned his most enthusiastic grin and Rose found it difficult to be cross about losing. She moved to reset the planets on the table. 'Best of three?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'That's enough rest and relaxation, I reckon.' He flicked a switch on the table and the entire thing folded back in on itself, returning to its suitcase form.

'Why? Are we there yet?' Rose was deliberately whining, like a back-seat child, while grinning at the same time.

'The TARDIS should have had time to recalibrate by now,' the Doctor answered in all seriousness. 'So with a bit of luck we'll be landing soon.'

With a sudden burst of energy he was already at the central control console, checking the various readouts and fiddling with switches and levers.

'Where are we going, then?' Rose asked.

'I don't know actually,' the Doctor confessed. 'I hooked up your MP3 player to the TARDIS controls and hit Shuffle. We're either going to find ourselves at a totally random destination . . .'

'Or?'

'Or we end up inside Franz Ferdinand!' The Doctor grinned to show he was joking. 'Let's find out . . .' And he yanked one of the large levers down, sending the TARDIS towards its next port of call.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Rose watched as the Doctor hurried from panel to panel of the TARDIS console, tweaking settings, flicking switches and tapping the odd read-out. This was one of her favourite parts of time and space travel: the last minutes inside the ship before stepping out into . . . who knew what.

The past, the future, sideways into another universe – every time Rose opened those doors she could be certain that the TARDIS had landed somewhere new, exciting and different. And she loved it.

Even the time it had taken them to Clacton.

In the winter.

Even that had been fun – once they had managed to persuade the Italian ice cream man to open up his shop and they'd been able to walk along the beach eating 99s in the persistent drizzle.

Rose wondered idly what might be outside this time when she walked out of the police box doors. Disturbing her reverie, without warning, the TARDIS shuddered and jerked violently, sending her flying. The console room was filled with an urgent screeching alarm Rose couldn't remember hearing before.

'What is it?' she asked, getting to her feet gingerly, once the worst of the lurching seemed to be over.

'Alarm of some kind,' came the answer, as the Doctor's hands moved with amazing speed over the controls, trying to locate the source.

'I sorta knew that,' said Rose, 'but what kind? Red alert? Mauve? Orange? Is something up with the TARDIS?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'No, it's not one of ours.' A quick grin. 'Not this time!' He slammed down a lever and the noise abruptly ceased.

'It's gone!' Rose observed, but the Doctor was still dancing around the multi-sided control console, deep in concentration.

'I just turned the volume down. Can't hear yourself think with that going on, can you?'

The Doctor was now looking at the computer screen, on which pages of data were streaming by at an astonishing rate. 'It's an intergalactic mayday . . . A star ship is in trouble.'

'Can we help?' Rose was sure the Doctor would be able to do something. Like an intergalactic AA man. The thought of the Doctor dressed in a bright yellow jacket made her smile.

'I'm reconnecting the directional controls.' Again the Doctor's hands flashed over the console. 'I promised you a magical mystery tour this time . . . and you're going to get one.'

The TARDIS engines shifted into a new gear – a sound Rose knew meant that they were about to arrive somewhere. With a final thump, the TARDIS finished its arrival.

A moment later the doors opened and Rose appeared, wide-eyed and intrigued to discover where they had landed now.

'Wow!' she gasped, and took a couple of steps forward. The ground was mossy and springy under her feet and the air was slightly sweet. To one side of her, Rose could see a rich green forest disappearing into the distance, where she could faintly make out glorious snow-tipped mountains.

In the other direction was an image from every Caribbean holiday brochure that she had ever seen: a perfect desert-island beachfront, consisting of endless white sands and a beautifully inviting turquoise sea.

She turned back to shout into the TARDIS interior. 'I think I need my bikini and a beach ball!'

But the Doctor was already stepping through the doors, shrugging into his long brown coat. He quickly locked the doors behind him, preventing any chance of a change of clothes. 'Hello? Emergency distress call . . . Crashed spaceship . . . Any of this sound familiar?' he reminded her.

Rose instantly felt guilty. She had been so taken with the stunning surroundings that she'd totally forgotten what had brought them here.

'Are you sure this is the right place?' she asked, hiding her embarrassment with a hint of belligerence. She waved an airy hand around her at the general beauty. 'I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm seeing holiday paradise, not a disaster site.'

The Doctor put his arms on her shoulders and gently turned her around. 'How about that?' He pointed behind the TARDIS, where, in the far distance, an ugly column of thick black smoke rose from the forest floor.

'OK, you win,' admitted Rose. 'But couldn't you have parked a bit closer?'

Rose and the Doctor were enjoying their walk through the forest. The plume of smoke had now blown clean away and, if it hadn't been for the way the Doctor kept taking readings on the sonic screwdriver every five minutes; Rose might have forgotten again why they were here.

'This way,' said the Doctor, slipping the device back into his pocket.

'It's just perfect, isn't it?' she commented, as they passed yet another display of stunningly colourful flowers. She stopped to smell them and had to gasp at the powerful sweet odour they gave off. 'Doctor?'

The Doctor was already walking on and Rose ran to catch him up, but he stopped suddenly and she had to skid to avoid crashing into his back.

'Now what . . .' she began, but then she stopped as she saw what he was looking at. 'Wow!'

'Double wow!' agreed the Doctor.

In front of them, partly hidden by the trees and the undergrowth, was a collection of ruined buildings. There were a dozen or so distinct properties in various states of decay and a few more complete buildings, in the centre of which was at least one large edifice.

'So what is it? A secret city?'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Not large enough to be a city . . . and these ruins don't exactly look domestic. I'd say it was some kind of religious site.'

'High priests, sacrifices, that sort of thing?'

The Doctor shot her one of his wildest grins. 'If we're lucky.'

* * *

The crew of the SS Humphrey Bogart had survived the crash landing, due mainly to the skill of their elderly ex-marine pilot. Major Kendle had managed to land the ship without too much damage, and the crew had been inspecting the hull for damage, when they were attacked by wild animals.

A short while later, when the Doctor had climbed the ruins to get his bearings, he'd been shot by the crew of the Bogart, mistaking him for one of the wild animals, which was a bit unflattering, as the attackers were large, four armed gorillas.

Rose had hidden inside the ruins, and met Rez, a young man similar in age to herself. When the Doctor rolled off the roof, she wanted to run to his aid, but Rez held her back, preventing her from being captured as well. The Doctor had only been stunned, as he opened his eyes and winked at her before playing possum.

Inside the ship, the Doctor looked up as the cabin door opened again. This time it was a woman, another human, but she clearly wasn't a soldier. He'd had a visit from an old, ex-marine called Major Kendle earlier, who had tried to interrogate him. Talk about gratitude. They set off an emergency beacon, and then shoot the people who come to rescue them!

The Doctor had just rambled on and on and on and on, in that way Rose found so adorable. After an hour, the Major had given up in despair. This new visitor however, had an air of intelligence about her. The Doctor wondered if perhaps he might be able to get through to this one.

'I'm Professor Petra Shulough. I'm in command of this mission,' she announced by way of an opening gambit. 'I'm sorry that you've been inconvenienced like this.'

The Doctor smiled disarmingly. 'Oh, it's no trouble,' he began, 'but I could do with having my wrists untied. It's not good for the circulation, you know.'

The professor gave the prisoner a long, cool look, evaluating him. He certainly didn't seem dangerous, but she knew that didn't necessarily mean anything. Trainee Pilot Hespell watched the pair of them, his gun held at the ready.

'Mr Hespell, untie the prisoner!'

Hespell hurried to obey the order.

'It's the Doctor, actually,' the Doctor said, rubbing his freed wrists, 'and thank you.' He spied his coat lying on the bunk and picked it up. 'Thanks for this as well. You're too kind.'

'Don't be so hasty, "Doctor". One aggressive move and Mr Hespell will shoot you. And not on a stun setting this time.'

'Understood,' the Doctor said, getting to his feet. 'Now, shall we start again? I'm the Doctor. My friend Rose and I picked up your mayday signal and we're here, wherever we are, to help.'

The professor frowned. 'You've no idea where you are?'

The Doctor looked around and then back at the stern-faced woman. 'The planet? No. This ship? Well, going on the design and what I saw of it from the outside, I'd have to say it's not exactly showroom new, is it? What's the date? Some time in the late twenty-fourth century? Your ship doesn't have any serious armaments. Looks to me to be some kind of deep-space explorer.'

The Doctor stole a quick look at the professor, but her face wasn't giving away anything. Oh well, in for a penny, thought the Doctor. 'You say you're the commander, but you're not wearing a uniform, so we're not talking military expedition, are we? So . . . who lives in a spaceship like this? Private explorer? Mineral speculator, perhaps? Am I getting warm?'

'I am looking for something,' the professor confessed.

The Doctor's interest was piqued. 'And what would that be, then?'

'A planet called Laylora.'

The Doctor repeated the name, testing the sounds of the word in his mouth, while trying to work out if he had ever heard of the place. So many planets, so many names . . .

'Laylora, Laylora . . . _Laylora!_ '

'You've heard of it?'

The Doctor nodded his head. 'Yes, I think so . . . It's one of those legendary worlds that mayor may not exist – all half-truths and rumour. Of course, I'm probably remembering it from the future. One of the side effects of time travel . . .'

The professor stared at him, convinced the man was a fool, or mad, or possibly both. 'But you do recognise the name?' she demanded.

'Well, yes, I think so. A planet reputed to be perfect in every way. The Paradise Planet. But it doesn't exist, does it? It's just a myth.'

'It's no myth, Doctor,' said the professor with pride. 'This is Laylora!'

* * *

As she followed her new friend through the rapidly darkening forest, Rose tried to keep calm and not worry about the Doctor. She knew the weapon had just stunned him – he'd been pretending to be unconscious when the two men started to carry him away. If only she knew what the wink had meant. Was it just an 'I'm OK' wink or did it mean something else? Was the Doctor expecting her to follow him straight away?

Whatever it meant, morning would come soon enough, and Rose was confident that she would catch up with him then. In the meantime, perhaps she should learn a little more about where she was.

'So what's this place called?' she asked, as Rez helped her over a fallen tree.

'Laylora,' he told her.

It was a beautiful name for a beautiful planet, and when Rose said as much he smiled.

'Laylora provides,' he replied, in the same way that old ladies said, 'God bless you!' back home, with an automatic but simple reverence.

Rose noticed that the trees were thinning out and it wasn't long before they reached the edge of the forest. In front of them was an undulating plain, scattered with odd clumps of trees but mostly given over to abundant wild grass. Nestled in a hollow, in the shadow of some small hills, was a settlement.

At first glance it looked like a campsite and then, as they drew closer, Rose got a slightly different feeling. It was familiar but for a moment she couldn't work out why. Then it hit her – it was a bit like a Native American village, the sort that she'd seen in the movies.

The Laylorans were all dressed in simple but colourful clothes and lived in large, tent-like buildings. Fires burned in front of each individual dwelling and a much larger fire could be seen in the middle of the village, where there was a sort of public space.

Their arrival had caused a bit of a stir. Rose had been introduced to a flurry of people, none of whose names stuck in her head for a moment. The Laylorans were rather excitable; apparently it had been quite a day – not only had there been the shock of the spaceship crashing, but they had also suffered a mammoth earth tremor.

And now Rose had suddenly appeared from nowhere. But there was something else, something they weren't telling her. Rose noticed that some people were giving her intense looks and then turning away when she looked back at them.

One woman had red-rimmed eyes, suggesting she had been doing a lot of crying. Had the tremor been worse than they were letting on? Had people died? Rose decided to ask Rez when they were alone again.

Everyone wanted to know whether Rose had come from the crashed sky boat. She tried to explain that she'd arrived by other means but wasn't sure she should tell them about the TARDIS. She didn't want them carting it off and making it an offering to their precious Laylora.

She'd picked up the idea that these people saw the planet as a goddess and she knew what that meant. Like she had said to the Doctor: sacrifices.

Rose realised that she had to tread carefully. No matter how familiar these people might seem, she had to remember that they were not displaced Native Americans. If she upset them, she might suffer a much worse fate than being scalped.

'Rose this is Kaylen, my sister,' Rez said, introducing an attractive, black haired young woman who was about the same age as Rose.

Not his girlfriend, then. Not, she told herself quickly, that she'd mind if he did have a girlfriend; she and the Doctor were here on a mission of mercy, not on the pull, but it might have been awkward if this Kaylen had been his girlfriend, that's all. However, by the look on the young Layloran woman's face, it might still be a problem.

'She's like you!' exclaimed Kaylen, and there was an odd mixture of surprise and sadness in her voice.

What did she mean, like him? Was this a blonde thing? Rose realised that most of the Laylorans did have dark-coloured hair, but she was sure that wasn't what Kaylen was getting at. And then she noticed the girl's hand, which was grasping Rez's arm. She had only three fingers. Three fingers and a thumb. And her other hand was the same.

Now, as she looked more closely, Rose could see that all the Laylorans had the same number of fingers. And once she started really looking at them, she saw that there were more things marking them out as alien rather than human.

They had rounder eyes and flatter noses and their ears were gently pointed. Not total Spock jobs, but more like the classic elf look. No wonder Rez had checked out her ears when they had first met. They might not be as weird-looking as the Moxx of Balhoon or the Ood, but these were aliens!

'I don't understand . . . You're human, but they're not, is that right?' she asked Rez.

'We found him when he was a baby. In a little sky boat,' explained Jaelette, his adoptive mother.

Rose nodded. Just like Superman, but without all the super strength and X-ray vision, she thought to herself. 'But didn't anyone come looking for you?' she asked. 'You must have come from somewhere . . .'

Rez shrugged. 'I don't know.'

Rose persisted. 'Somewhere out there someone must know who you are, where you come from. You might have relatives, parents . . .'

'The tribe are my family now,' Rez told her solemnly.

'Brother Hugan will want to see her,' Kaylen said, interrupting their discussion.

Rez nodded and led Rose towards a large tent that was more gaudily decorated than most. 'Brother Hugan is our shaman,' he explained, so Rose wasn't surprised when the tent flap was pulled back and an extraordinarily attired Layloran appeared.

'Laylora is angry,' announced the shaman, his fierce expression amplified by the war paint. 'She will call forth the Witiku! We must prepare ourselves.'

'Witiku? What the hell are they?' queried Rose.

'Laylora's protectors,' Kaylen offered by way of explanation.

Rez must have realised that this was a bit short on detail, because he leaned close to whisper in her ear. 'They're mythical monsters that appear when Laylora is threatened. There are pictures of them all over the temple. That costume I was wearing is meant to represent them.'

Rose didn't like the sound of this. The costume hadn't been that frightening once she'd realised that a human being was inside it, but the idea of a real creature like that was something else.

Brother Hugan was speaking again. 'Our ancestors knew how to keep Laylora happy. We have forgotten too many of the old ways,' he announced.

Rose felt a shiver of apprehension. She didn't like the direction things were going in. Suddenly she was very aware that she was in the middle of an alien settlement, surrounded by aliens. And that she was alone.

'We have become lazy in our devotions,' continued the shaman, looking around at the people of the tribe. 'There is only one way to placate Laylora's wrath. We must make her an offering . . .'

An offering? What was he going to do – hand round a collection plate? In the silence that followed, Rose began to get a nasty feeling that the old man had something a bit more drastic in mind.

'We must offer her a sacrifice!'

The gathered Laylorans reacted with mutters and gasps, but Brother Hugan simply responded by raising his voice even louder. 'Laylora provides,' he screamed.

And automatically the Laylorans all responded in kind. 'Laylora provides,' they chanted.

'Laylora provides,' the shaman cried again, louder still.

And this time the response from the crowd was deafening.

It's getting a bit like a rock concert, thought Rose. He'll have them singing the chorus in a minute.

'Laylora provides,' Brother Hugan screeched for a third time. 'But Laylora demands of us in return!' This time the crowd stayed silent. 'Laylora demands a blood sacrifice!'

Rose swallowed hard. Blood sacrifice! She didn't like the sound of that. She looked around and realised, with a shiver of dread that all the Laylorans were staring at her.

Brother Hugan wanted to offer his precious living planet a sacrifice and he appeared to have already chosen her for the honour.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

The Doctor and Rose walked back to the TARDIS in silence, deep in their own thoughts. Rose took the opportunity to take one last look at the wonderful planet and her heart went out to poor Rez, who had been forced to leave this paradise.

'Will he be all right?' she wondered out loud.

'I think so,' the Doctor answered after a moment or two. 'Humans are very adaptable.'

'But this is all he's ever known.'

'Until now.' The Doctor smiled. 'Anyway, it's the only way this place can get back to its normal state.'

'A paradise planet that no human can ever visit. That's a bit sad, isn't it?'

The Doctor shrugged, searching in his pocket for the TARDIS key. He'd figured it out when he read the final entry in Maurit Guillan's journal.

"And now we must leave this heavenly paradise, and take away with us our human and ancient imperfections. Faced with such beauty we have no choice but to accept our uncleanliness and return to the harsh realities of our own filthy lives."

Professor Shulough had spent her life following Guillan through his journal entries, until she had found Laylora. And now, they couldn't stay, because the planet was literally allergic to them. It would produce quakes, storms, and the four armed gorillas called Witiku, to eliminate the alien infestation.

He put the key in the lock. 'You know that feeling on a winter's day, when it's snowed in the night and you come downstairs and everything is different. There's a blanket of white and it's all perfect, untouched?'

'Yeah,' Rose said, 'and you want to go out in it but at the same time you don't, 'cause then it'll get mushy and covered in footprints and . . . spoilt.'

The Doctor nodded. 'It's the same thing here. Nothing lasts for ever, not even the Paradise Planet. But it can last for a bit longer yet.'

He opened the door and stepped through into the impossibly cavernous console room of his own ship. Rose hesitated for a moment in the doorway, looking back at the beach.

'Oh, well,' she said, following the Doctor and closing the TARDIS door behind her, 'there's always Clacton, I suppose. Not much call for a bikini there, though.'

The Doctor was already at the controls, setting switches and preparing to dematerialise. 'I think we can do a bit better than that,' he said, grinning.

He pulled at a lever and set the central column in motion. 'Let's go and explore!' Moving around the console, he started adjusting the controls, and the time rotor pumped up and down. After a short while, he prepared for landing, and struggled to lock the coordinates, as if the TARDIS were reluctant to land.

'That was a tight fit, we nearly didn't make it,' he said, as they walked down the ramp.

'I don't know what's wrong though. She's sort of queasy. Indigestion, like she didn't want to land,' he said, inspecting the exterior shell.

'Oh, if you think there's going to be trouble, we could always get back inside and go somewhere else,' she said seriously, and then they burst out laughing. Like that was ever going to happen.

'I think we've landed inside a cupboard.' He walked over to a yellow bulkhead door with a big wheel on it. 'Here we go,' he said as he turned the wheel and pushed the door open.

'Open door 15,' a female computer voice said.

'Some sort of base,' he observed. 'Moon base, sea base, space base, they build these things out of kits.'

'Close door 15,' the computer said helpfully as he closed the hatch.

Rose became aware of howling and buffeting from beyond the walls. 'Glad we're indoors, sounds like a storm out there.'

'Open door 16.' The Doctor opened another door onto a long corridor.

'Human design, you've got a thing about kits. This place was put together like a flat pack wardrobe, only bigger…, and easier.'

He opened the door at the end of the corridor. 'Open door 17.'

There were three steps down into an area with tables and chairs, and a big 3 on the wall.

'Oh, it's a sanctuary base' he said, pleased to be able to identify the architecture. Rose closed the door and walked down the steps.

'Close door 17.'

'Deep Space exploration, we've gone way out . . . and listen to that . . . underneath, someone's drilling.'

'Welcome to hell,' Rose said.

'Oh, it's not that bad,' he said, trying to find something positive to say.

'No, over there.' She pointed to the wall opposite, where there were words painted on the wall in big block letters, and a vertical alien script underneath.

'Hold on . . . what does that say?' He moved quickly to the script and crouched down to inspect it. 'That's weird . . . it won't translate.'

'But I thought the TARDIS translated everything, writing as well, we should see English.' Rose didn't know why, but that troubled her more than any obvious, physical threat. Here was something that was really unknown.

'Exactly, if that's not working, then it means this writing is old, very old, impossibly old. We should find out who's in charge,' he said with urgency in his voice.

* * *

The Doctor's voice came over the comm-link in the cockpit of the escape rocket. 'Zach? We'll be off, now. Have a good trip home. And the next time you get curious about something . . . Oh, what's the point? You'll just go blundering in. The human race,' he said with a 'tut' in his voice.

Ida was desperately trying to remember what had happened. 'But Doctor, what did you find down there? That creature, what was it?'

The Doctor looked at Rose. 'I don't know. Never did decipher that writing. But that's good, Day I know everything? Might as well stop.' He closed the comm-link for a moment.

'What do you think it was, really?' Rose asked him. She was worried. If he didn't know what it was…? Well, there was no telling what could have happened.

'I think we beat it. That's good enough for me.' He tried to sound upbeat to lift the mood.

'It said I was going to die in battle,' she told him, not sure if it was telling the truth or just trying to scare her. If it was the latter, then it had succeeded.

'Then it lied,' he told her with conviction. She was not going to die in battle. Not on his watch. He opened the comm-link again. 'Right, onwards, upwards. Ida? See you again, maybe.'

'I hope so.' Ida's voice came back over the speaker.

'And thanks, boys!' Rose shouted back.

'Hang on though, Doctor,' Ida called. 'You never really said. You two, who are you?'

Rose looked at him. "Good question" she thought, "who are we?"

He could see the question in her eyes. In Habitation 3, when they had lost the TARDIS, they had talked of living a life, perhaps together. "Yeah, but stuck with you, that's not so bad", she had said, selflessly.

He gave her one of his special smiles and answered Ida's question. 'Oh, the stuff of legend,' he said and closed the comm-link.

"I can live with that" she thought. "The stuff of legend". That held a promise of things to come. Conversations to be had, wishes to be fulfilled, actions to be taken. Yes! She could live with that . . . for now.

The time rotor started grinding up and down as they left the escape rocket behind. Rose took her phone out of her pocket and checked it, she had lost the signal on Krop Tor, but it was back now.

She speed dialled her mum. 'Hi Mum, how are ya?'

'Rose, oh it's lovely to hear you, where are you?'

'Well, we've just been on the event horizon of a black hole, an' I lost the phone signal, so I just wanted to check that I could still contact you an' see if you were all right.'

'An' when are ya comin' home Sweetheart?' Jackie asked, as though visiting a black hole was a routine as going to the shops.

'We'll call by soon Mum.'

'I'll see you soon.'

'I promise.'

'All right, be careful . . . bye.'

'Love you, bye.' Rose ended the call, and smiled at the Doctor.

'Where do you want to go next then?' he asked her, running a hand through his dishevelled hair.

'What . . .? Oh, I don't know. Where and when haven't we been before?' she asked him, as she put her phone in her pocket.

'Y'know, I really don't know,' he told her. 'That Krop Tor thing has thrown me a bit; I'm still a bit spooked by it.'

'Hey, it all worked out all right in the end,' she reassured him.

'Yeah, but it very nearly didn't.' He had a concerned look on his face. 'I destroyed the energy field holding the planet in place before I knew the TARDIS was there! I had condemned us all to that horrible fate,' he confessed to her.

'Oh come here you.' Rose pulled him into a hug. 'You did what had to be done,' she whispered into his ear. 'I trust you . . . Always have, always will.' With that she released the hug and without thinking, almost gave him a kiss on the lips. She hesitated and kissed him lovingly on the cheek.

'Tell you what, let's go to some place where I can dress up again,' she said with a beaming smile.

His dark mood was suddenly forgotten, filed away in that superior Time Lord brain of his. 'Okay. Here's a first. Let's get the TARDIS to make the choice. She usually does anyway!' he said with a glance up at the rotor, the lights flickered in a 'huffy' sort of way.

'Right then Rose, come over here and you can set the coordinates,' he said holding out his hand. She rushed over, took his hand, and hugged his arm all excited.

'What? I get to fly the TARDIS?' she said disbelieving.

'Welllll, sort of. You're going to select the 'where' and 'when' and I'll do the flyin'.' Rose squealed with delight and clapped her hands together.

He grinned at her; that was so cute. He showed her dials and levers that she twiddled and set at random, before nodding in satisfaction.

'Right then, here goes, grab your ears and grab your nose, where we end up, nobody knows.' He engaged the drive with his usual flourish as Rose collapsed in fits of laughter. The level of wheezing changed as the TARDIS made its way through the Vortex and into normal space.

The rotor stopped and the Doctor took the systems off-line. They both went over to the view screen which was suspended over the console.

'Where are we then?' Rose asked as he examined the readouts.

'Oh, this is great!' he said with enthusiasm. 'Early 6th century England. The last time I was in this period, I had white curly hair, wore frilly shirts and a velvet jacket,' he announced quite matter of fact.

Rose snorted a laugh. 'You're kiddin', right? You used to dress like Laurence Llewellyn-Bowen? You must have had a great sense of humour.' Rose howled with laughter.

The Doctor looked hurt. 'Actually, I was quite a serious fellow and a bit of a sour-puss, but Sarah Jane didn't seem to mind. She thought I looked quite "dapper". In fact, it was this time period where we had our first adventure.' He had a faraway look in his eyes as he remembered.

Rose wiped her eyes with her fingers. 'So come on then. Are you gonna tell me where we are?'

His eyes went wide in amazement; he put his hand over his mouth. 'Oh Rose! This is brilliant!' He gave a little giggle and grinned at her. 'No, really. Absolutely brilliant! The stuff of legend.'

'What?' she laughed. 'Where are we?' She was getting excited as she picked up on his emotion.

He quickly went into lecturing mode. 'We are on Earth. 510 A.D. 21st of June. It's a Monday. We are in the City of Legions, also known as Chester, and this is the really cool bit, outside of those doors . . .' He pointed at the wooden doors of the TARDIS.

'What? What? Tell me. Where are we?' she squealed.

He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. 'The courtyard of Camelot castle. The home of the legendary King Arthur!'

Rose's mouth fell open, her eyes like saucers. 'No! You are kiddin' me. Camelot! Really? I thought King Arthur was a myth.'

The Doctor smiled at her. 'And what do we say about myths Rose Tyler?'

She looked up and smiled back at him. 'Most myths have a grain of truth in them?' she said tentatively.

Exactly! You're thinking of Historia Regum Britanniae by that old rogue Geoffrey of Monmouth. He made the whole thing up. Never was one for letting the facts get in the way of a good story. Actually you'd have liked him. Reminds me of Jack Harkness.'

'And isn't Camelot supposed to be in Cornwall? Tintagel?' she said, recalling the stories that she thought she knew.

'Now you're getting your myths, your legends and your history mixed up,' he told her.

'Oh, silly me,' she said, rolling her eyes.

'This time period wasn't well recorded due to the Saxon invasions and the loss of Roman rule. There's no Sir Lancelot, no Holy Grail quests, just a brilliant king trying to unite a kingdom. So c'mon Rose Tyler, let's go and play dressing up.' He grabbed her hand and they headed for the clothing department that he still called a wardrobe.

For the Doctor, it was quite easy to pick a simple green robe with a hood that he could wear over his brown suit, along with a broad leather belt.

He was first back to the console room and set about scanning the castle and familiarising himself with the floor plan.

'Well?' He heard the simple question from the doorway and turned around to look at Rose. His breath caught in his chest. There, standing in front of him was a vision from a Robin Hood film or something similar.

She wore a simple, pale blue shift dress which hugged her figure in all the right places. A low square collar gave a hint of her cleavage and a broad leather belt hung on her hips, accentuating her narrow waist. She had braided her hair along her temples and behind her ears ending in small ponytails behind each ear. She had a white linen scarf on her head that fell across her shoulders, held in place with a silver headband which sat on her head like a small crown.

'What'cha think?' she asked him. He just stood there, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, lost for words.

'I, er . . . you, er . . . Blimey!' is all he could manage. Rose gave him that special smile, the one with her tongue just poking between her teeth.

'Yep. Still got it' she thought to herself.

'R-R-Rose? You know when I had big ears and wore a leather jacket?' he started to ask.

'Yeah?' Rose replied cautiously.

'I was an idiot! I can feel another compliment coming on, a real one this time. Rose Tyler, you look stunning. You really are beautiful.'

Rose blushed and looked down at her hands. 'Why thank you my lord. Thou art too kind.' She looked back up at him, still smiling.

The Doctor snorted a laugh. 'Well that's an improvement on your Scottish,' he laughed.

He held out his hand for her and together they headed for the door.

The first thing Rose noticed when she stepped out of the TARDIS was the stink! The TARDIS had materialised in a makeshift stable and they were surrounded by sheep, goats, and chickens.

Rose hitched up her dress and picked her way past the animals and their droppings, over the straw and onto the flagstones. The Doctor smiled to himself when he saw that she had kept her trainers on, ready to run.

She wrinkled her nose as she looked around and took in the view. To the left of the TARDIS was the barbican with the main arched passageway, complete with a raised portcullis and a drawbridge over a moat. Each corner of the octagonal castle wall had a round tower with a wooden door at the base which allowed access to the spiral staircase that led to the battlement walkways on top of the walls.

Directly opposite them were the walls of the inner bailey and the passageway to the keep. Through the open doors, Rose could just make out the manicured gardens in front of the great hall. The outer bailey was similar to a small market town with traders setting up stalls and carts, selling a bewildering array of goods.

The Doctor looked at Rose with a raised, questioning eyebrow as she snorted a laugh. 'I was just thinkin' that after one and a half millennia, we still have car-boot sales. And then I thought that they'd be called cart-boot sales.' She cracked up at her own play on words.

'Greetings sire. Yonder maiden seems amused this fine morning.' A tall, handsome young man was smiling at them. The Doctor suspected from his clothing that he was a knight.

Rose waved her hand in front of her mouth in an attempt to stop the giggles. 'Ooh, I'm sorry, I just had a funny thought,' Rose said. What came out of her mouth was, 'Pray forgive me kind sir. An amusing thought came unbidden to my mind,' Rose looked up at the Doctor with an amazed expression. Had she really just spoken like she was in a Shakespearean play?

The Doctor bowed slightly. 'Greetings sire. It is indeed a fine morning.' The Doctor held out his hand in greeting. 'I am Doctor of Tardis, a Lord of Gallifrey, and this is the fair Lady Rose of the estate of Powell in London. We have travelled from . . . Shrewsbury to visit this fine castle.'

The stranger shook the Doctor's hand firmly, and then took Rose's hand and kissed it in a very gallant fashion. Rose blushed slightly at the appreciative gaze of the handsome stranger and felt herself giving a small curtsey.

'My name is Patrice, and a more beautiful rose I have never seen,' he said, flashing his brilliant white teeth.

'Sir Patrice?' the Doctor asked. 'One of the King's knights?'

'The very same. You have heard of me?' he said with a hint of pride in his voice.

'Who has not heard of King Arthur and his knights of the round table? Trust me, the stories of your courage and deeds will be told for centuries to come.' The Doctor grinned and held out his arm for Rose. 'Come Rose; let us explore this fine castle. Good day to you Sir Patrice, mayhap our paths shall cross again.'

'I look forward to it,' he said, winking at Rose and making her blush again.

They walked towards the 'cart-boot' market arm-in-arm.

'Doctor? How come I'm talkin' like I'm in a Shakespeare play?' she asked him.

'It's the TARDIS; she's translating your English into Olde English. Normally you don't hear the words if it's a foreign language, but in this case it's . . . Well . . . English,' he said with a shrug.

'Forsooth!' is definitely not what she said.

They wandered through the stalls examining the goods on offer and chatting to people. On any planet, in any time period, this is what they enjoyed the most, interacting with the locals.

They browsed the large market within the walls of the outer bailey for a while, when they heard a fanfare of horns on the battlements.

'The King!' someone shouted.

'The King has returned!' someone else called out.

The clip-clop of hooves echoed through the entrance passageway of the barbican, and a large, black horse entered the courtyard. Mounted on the horse was a large, impressive, middle aged man. He exuded charisma and authority. There was no doubt that this man was the King. Behind him followed his retinue of equally impressive knights on horseback.

As the entourage passed by, the Doctor spotted the King's sword. 'Rose! Look! Hanging from his belt! The King's sword!'

'Is that Excalibur?' she asked in awe. 'The magical sword?' She noticed that his enthusiasm had turned to concern.

'Rose, there's no such thing as magic, only misunderstood technology,' he whispered, almost to himself. 'Do you see the intricate pattern on the scabbard?' he asked. Rose nodded as he continued. 'It's Tezzarian, an alien language, which means that sword is off-world technology.'

Rose's mouth fell open. 'No way!' she exclaimed. 'You mean we've landed in the middle of an adventure . . .? Brilliant!'

In the darkened passageway of the keep entrance, a local man, with odd body language was holding an open book, paying a great deal of attention to the King's sword.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

As usual, the brilliant adventure turned out not to be as brilliant as Rose had hoped. Although they had met a Time Agent called Lance Elliot, who it turned out happened to know Jack Harkness. He had come to Camelot to take the alien sword Excalibur, and return it to Tezzaria, the world where it was created.

The Doctor had stopped him, pointing out that without the sword, Arthur would not have been the great king that legend remembered. And it had turned out that he needed that sword to help defeat the dragon-like alien that was threatening to take over Camelot and claim the throne for itself.

Arthur and his knights of the round table had taken the Doctor, Rose and Lance into the Mara Forest to find the alien's lair so that the Doctor could speak to it and offer it a lift home. The Craigon was disgraced by failing to recover the sword of his enemy, and faced a court martial and dishonourable discharge if he returned home.

Lance had used the teleport on his disabled Vortex Manipulator to get them out of the Craigon's den, and they party returned to Camelot to prepare for an aerial attack. The Doctor had stood on the roof of the keep in his orange space suit to draw the Craigon's fire, and challenge it to ritual combat.

The Craigon had refused the challenge, preferring to rip him apart with its bare claws. So the Doctor had distracted the alien with an insult, and ran inside the keep, luring down towards the dungeon. Khysssh Shhrysshk was enraged when the Doctor claimed that his mother was a damp match and his father couldn't light a barbecue with a fart.

Inside the keep, the Doctor had met up with Rose and Lance, who were carrying large, gun-like fire extinguishers. They acted as bait, to lure the Craigon down towards the dungeon where they hoped to trap it.

They were now halfway down a hallway when a group of terrified servants came around the corner and skidded to a halt.

'Damn' the Doctor thought, if he went that way they would all be killed by the Craigon.

Rose spotted the handmaiden that had be appointed to her the previous evening. 'Methanwy run,' she called to her as they all screamed.

Khysssh Shhrysshk had come around the corner, his bulk filling the hallway. The Doctor opened the nearest door and pushed everyone inside. He rested his back against the door and fused it with the sonic. They were in Rose's bedroom.

'Well, as usual, this isn't quite going to plan,' he said. 'I wanted to get him into the dungeon.'

'Did you really call his mother a damp match?' Rose asked with a laugh.

'Yeah, you should hear what I said about his dad!' he laughed as he took off the helmet. The door pounded and the Doctor jumped forwards to join Rose and Lance, turning to look at the door.

The door lurched again. All three instinctively moved backwards towards the wall. There was a loud splintering bang and the door toppled forwards to land flat on the floor.

Khysssh Shhrysshk ducked and stepped into the room as Arthur came around the corner with Bedivere and Tristran.

'See the servants to safety,' Arthur told them as he drew Excalibur from its scabbard.

'Sire, Lady Rose is in there with Lord Doctor,' Methanwy told him.

Rose could hear the gurgling noise from his rumen that she had heard in his den. He was about to 'fire'.

She aimed the extinguisher and pulled the trigger as the air rippled. Khysssh Shhrysshk grabbed the extinguisher and pulled it out of her hands. Unfortunately the strap was around her neck and Rose went with it, straight into the arms of the Craigon.

Rose's back was against the belly of the Craigon, a powerful, scaly, muscular arm around her waist held her off the floor. She could feel the points of razor sharp claws at her throat.

'Well Time Lord, you may be difficult to kill, but I'll wager this one isn't' Khysssh Shhrysshk growled. He looked at Lance. 'Drop the device.'

Lance looked at the Doctor who nodded for him to comply. Lance took the strap from around his neck and dropped the extinguisher to the floor. They both saw Arthur peep around the door frame to assess the situation and disappear again.

'So Doctor, my father couldn't light a barbecue with a fart?' Khysssh Shhrysshk hissed with venom in his voice.

Even being in a life threatening situation, Rose spluttered as she suppressed a laugh.

'You will suffer for that Doctor, you will see the skin stripped off your precious lady here, and then I will deal with you.'

Arthur leapt through the doorway and thrust Excalibur into the side of the Craigon's chest. Khysssh Shhrysshk swished his tail and knocked Arthur across the room, his sword clattering across the floor, and ending up under the bed.

As Khysssh Shhrysshk instinctively reached to feel the wound, he dropped Rose to the floor who screamed as she fell.

Going down the stairs, Methanwy heard Rose scream and turning, pushed past Tristran and ran back to the hallway. She ran to the doorway and skidded to a halt, looking into the room.

She saw Rose lying on the floor with the dragon standing over her. 'The dragon has killed her' she thought.

'ROSE!' she yelled.

Khysssh Shhrysshk, surprised by the sudden entrance belched and roared a jet of flame which engulfed Methanwy and killed her before her charred body hit the polished, oak floor.

'METHANWY!' Rose screamed as she saw her charred corpse on the floor.

She looked up at the Craigon who was grinning at his handy work.

Rose had what the Doctor called the 'Jackie Tyler' look on her face.

'YOU BASTARD!' she yelled with all the anguish and venom in her body.

Khysssh Shhrysshk ignored her and headed for Arthur, swatting the Doctor and Lance out of the way. He stood over Arthur and prepared to stamp him through the floor.

Rose looked down at the bed and grabbed the heavy blanket and cast it like a fishing net at the Craigon's head. It covered his head and he stopped to try and pull it off, it was catching on his crest scales.

As Rose had grabbed the blanket it had uncovered Excalibur and she saw it reflecting the candlelight.

'DOCTOR!' Rose grabbed the sword and slid it hilt first towards him.

The Doctor leapt into a forward roll, grabbing the sword and rolling into a sitting position under the Craigon. He thrust upwards and buried the sword deep into his abdomen. The room filled with the stench of bad eggs.

Khysssh Shhrysshk roared again and grabbed the Doctor's shoulders, lifting him off the floor, opening his mouth wide to bite the Doctor's head off.

Lance picked himself off the floor and leapt into a double footed flying kick, catching Khysssh Shhrysshk's lower jaw and spinning his head around. Lance landed on top of Arthur and grinned at him. 'Harkness would have loved this' he thought to himself.

The Doctor was thrown across the room, crashed into the wardrobe, and crumpled into a heap on the floor. Khysssh Shhrysshk turned and saw Arthur and Lance entangled together. This was his chance to finish them.

Lance got to one knee and protected the King. He could see blood seeping from the stomach wound and smell rotten eggs. Suddenly his thoughts were crystal clear and he had a plan.

He quickly reached inside his jacket and found the shiny metal object he was looking for, part of his survival kit. Khysssh Shhrysshk menacingly approached, gathering himself for a final attack.

Things seemed to happen in slow motion. Lance brought his fist from inside his pocket and punched it through the wound in Khysssh Shhrysshk's underbelly. The Craigon looked stunned.

In his cheesiest Australian accent Lance said. 'Time to light the barbie!'

With his hand inside the rumen, he flipped the lid on his trusty petrol lighter and ran his thumb down the flint-wheel.

The windows in the room blew out with a deafening 'BOOM' followed by a damp 'SPLAT' as bits of Craigon covered the room.

Rose pulled herself from under the blanket that had landed on her after the Craigon had thrown it off its head. She scrabbled over to the Doctor's motionless form and cradled his head on her lap.

'Doctor?' she whispered, stroking his unruly hair. 'Doctor!? Don't you go an' die on me! Don't you dare go changin' again!' She was crying now, tears rolling down her cheeks. 'Don't you dare go an' die on me! Not now! I've got to tell you,' her voice caught in her throat. 'Tell you that I . . ..'

'Rose?' he breathed. He reached up and caressed her face, wiping the tears with his thumb.

'I'm here,' she laughed and cried. 'I'm here.' She hugged his head fiercely.

'Help me get to the TARDIS, I need the medi-bay,' he told her.

She kneeled and put her shoulder under his armpit and they staggered across the room to the door. Arthur and Lance were unmoving, either unconscious or dead. They didn't know. The Doctor took in the scene of devastation.

'Blimey! The cleaners are going to be pissed!' he laughed and immediately winced. 'Ooh, cracked ribs. No laughing, definitely no laughing.'

They made it to the TARDIS medi-bay and Rose helped him lie on the examination couch. The couch came to life and started beeping and pinging as various robotic tools and implements attached themselves to the Doctor. An oxygen mask fitted itself over his face. A gold mist started to envelope his body as the nano-genes started to repair his body.

Rose went back to the other room and found that Arthur was trying to extricate himself from under Lance. She grabbed Lance's lapels and started to drag him across the floor. Arthur grabbed his knees and lifted him off the floor.

'Where are we going?' Arthur asked her as they struggled through the door.

'TARDIS medi-bay' she replied.

'Rose, I have a confession to make.' He smiled at her. 'I understand less than half of the things you and the Doctor say.'

Rose had a fit of post-stress hysterical giggles, knowing what was coming next.

'What the fuck!' Are the very un-royal words that came out of Arthur's mouth when they entered the TARDIS.

'Gadzooks!' is what Rose heard; as the TARDIS thought that this language was a bit choice for a young ladies ears.

The Medi-couch lowered itself to the floor so that they could easily lower Lance onto it. As with the Doctor, after the couch had risen, it sprang into action and started to repair his body.

A green anti-burn gunk was sprayed on his face and his burnt right hand was placed in a plastic container of the same gunk.

Exhausted, Rose looked over at Arthur. 'Fancy a cup of tea?' she asked him.

'I don't know, do I?'

'Oh, that's right, you haven't got tea yet have ya. I wonder if it'll cause a paradox thingy if I make you a cuppa. Oh, who cares? I need a cup of tea.'

The Doctor woke up and looked over at Rose. She was sat in a chair and had her feet up on the couch, grinning at him over the top of her mug.

'Howya feelin'?' she asked him.

He looked at the display above his head. 'Apparently I'm alright.'

'Here y'are then.' She handed him a mug of tea.

He took it off her and had a sip. 'Aaaahh.' He looked over to Lance who was still asleep. Arthur was sat the other side of the couch enjoying a mug of tea.

* * *

It was first light and the servants had started to clean up after the night's activities. Tradesmen were repairing the doors. Rose watched with tears in her eyes as Methanwy's charred body was placed on a wooden stretcher and carried away.

One of the handmaidens wailed and collapsed to her knees on the floor. Rose walked over and kneeled down besides her putting an arm around her shoulders.

'Did you know Methanwy?' Rose asked her.

'Yes m'lady, we came from the same village,' she said between sobs. Rose pulled her into a hug and they both wept.

'My name is Rose,' she told her gently. 'I'm not a m'lady. Methanwy wouldn't call me Rose, thought she'd lose her position. But I wanted her to, and now she can't.' She wiped a tear from her cheek.

'Tell me about her, I want to know everything about her. Everything about a woman who was so courageous and yet was afraid to call me Rose.' She was looking up at the Doctor who stood there in silence. His face showing all the usual pain of a Time Lord who could not save everyone.

* * *

Lance was out of the medi-bay and healing well. The nano-genes had fixed up most of his injuries. The burns would take a bit longer so he had his right arm in a sling and bandages on his hand.

He had been summoned to the throne room along with the Doctor and Rose, by command of King Arthur.

Arthur and Guinevere sat on their thrones in front of the assembled court, the knighting-stool in front of them. The ceremonial sword was in its stand by the side of the stool.

'Ladies and gentlemen, today I have the great privilege to confer the honour of knighthood upon a man who demonstrated great courage, fortitude and presence of mind under extreme duress. His action not only saved Camelot and the City of Legions, but also saved my life.' Arthur picked up the sword.

'Lancelot, please come forward and kneel before your King,' Arthur commanded.

Lance stood and walked forwards to stand before Arthur. He knelt on the stool and Arthur touched his right then left shoulder with the tip of the sword.

'Advances Chevalier au nom de Dieu,' Arthur said solemnly. Lancelot stood and Arthur hugged him gently. The assembled guest applauded and cheered as they left their seats to congratulate the new knight.

Rose hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. The Doctor grinned and slapped him on the back.

'So you two are on your way then,' Lance said. 'Leaving me here to my fate.'

'Hey, you're the one who came here on your own volition, and you need to be here to throw Arthur's sword in the lake when he dies.'

'Does that really happen?' Rose asked excitedly.

'Why not? The rest of the legend has been fairly close, and we can't have an alien sword lying around, now can we?' the Doctor said smiling.

'Tell you what Lance, before I put the Time Agency out of business, I'll get them to come and pick you up if you like,' the Doctor told him.

Before Lancelot could answer, a guard called to him. 'Sir Lancelot, the apothecary is here with your healing remedy.'

He screwed up his face making Rose laugh. A young woman entered the throne room carrying a tray and placed it on the table.

She had curly, black shoulder length hair and beautiful green eyes. She wore a pale green dress with a white apron, and a white scarf head dress.

Lance looked at Rose and the Doctor, grinned and looked back at the young woman. She was pouring a dark green liquid from a bottle into a goblet. She brought it over to Lance and he gave her a smile that made her blush.

As he took the goblet, his fingers touched hers and held the contact for a little longer than he should have.

'What is your name apothecary?' he asked with a silky smooth voice.

'Gwyneth Sir,' she said, unimpressed with his attentions. 'You must drink it down in one go,' she told him.

He smiled and knocked it back. He immediately stuck out his green tongue, gasped and shuddered. The Doctor and Rose laughed at the expression on his face.

Gwyneth put a small spoon into a jar on the tray and scooped up the contents. She put the spoon in his mouth and closed his mouth by pushing his chin up.

'Mmmmm, strawberry jam, you should have given me that first,' he told her.

She looked at him slightly seductively and said. 'Maybe next time.'

'He definitely knows Jack!' Rose said laughing as he walked over.

'Don't be too eager to send the Agency to get me, will you?' he said with a grin.

Arthur and Guinevere strolled over to say goodbye as Rose's phone started to ring.

''Scuse me,' she said as she took the call. 'Hi Mum, how are ya?'

'What magic is that?' Arthur asked the Doctor in amazement, pointing at Rose's mobile phone.

'No magic Arthur, just a complicated machine that allows Rose to speak with her mother over a distance,' he explained.

'Remarkable!' Arthur exclaimed.

'Mum, stop cryin' an' tell me what happened,' Rose said.

'Well, Arthur, Guinevere, we will be going soon. Thank you for your hospitality,' the Doctor said.

'Elton? Who's Elton when he's at home?' Rose said.

'Our hospitality seems inadequate for the service you have provided us,' Guinevere said in earnest.

'He was usin' you to get to the Doctor! I'll kill 'im.' Rose had her 'Jackie Tyler' face on.

'Er, I think we'd better be going now, bye.' The Doctor grabbed Rose's arm, waved at everyone and headed for the door.

'He had a photo of me? I'll bloody kill 'im! No one upsets my Mum!'.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

'I'll kill 'im,' Rose raged as she stomped up the ramp, rattling the floor grating. 'He made her cry, he made my mum cry.'

The Doctor raised an eyebrow; he didn't think anything could make Jackie Tyler cry. He set the coordinates for the Tyler flat as he felt himself being drawn into another domestic situation.

'Calm down Rose, we'll be there in a minute,' he told her.

The time rotor stopped, and Rose ran down the ramp, and into the living room. She saw her mum sitting on the sofa, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.

'Mum, what's happened?' she asked as she sat beside her and put an arm around her shoulders.

'Oh Rose, I've been a fool . . . I've been acting like a silly schoolgirl,' she sniffed.

'All right Mum, calm down, I'll make a cuppa, and you can tell me all about it.'

With a mug of tea in hand, Jackie started to tell them the tale of Elton Pope.

'I first met him down the launderette, the washing machine had broken, an' Mickey's not here anymore.'

'Why didn't you call Mum? The Doctor could 'ave fixed it,' she said looking up at him.

'Well, I didn't 'ave to, Love, Elton came back here an' fixed it for me . . . said it was a fuse. He seemed like such a nice bloke . . . made 'im a cup of tea I did. He left me his number in case I needed anythin' else fixin'.'

'And did ya?' Rose asked gently.

'Did I what?' Jackie asked, slightly suspicious of what she was asking.

'Have anythin' that needed fixin'?'

'Oh. . . yeah. . . things seemed to keep goin' on the blink,' she said, sheepishly. The Doctor raised his eyebrows, looking slightly amused by that statement. 'An' he put some shelves up for me, he was very handy.'

'Hmm, I bet he was,' the Doctor said. Both Jackie and Rose gave him a 'look', and he decided to shut up. He didn't want another one of those slaps.

'He said it was power surges or somethin', causin' the fuses to blow.' The Doctor looked up at the ceiling, noticing a small strand of cobweb by the light fitting.

'Well, yesterday evening, after he'd changed a fuse for me, he went and got a pizza for us.'

'That sounds cosy,' Rose said.

'It was nothin' like that madam, he was a mate, an' because he was a mate, I thought I'd put the money for the pizza in his jacket pocket, because he wouldn't have taken it. And that's when I found it . . . a photograph of you.'

'Where'd he get a photo of me?'

'I don't know Sweetheart, but it was on the estate, and you could see the TARDIS in the background, out of focus like.'

This got the Doctor's attention. 'A surveillance photograph, someone's been watching you,' he said, looking at Rose. 'Probably to get to me, or the TARDIS.'

'Yeah, he said he was lookin' for ya, Doctor, but said he'd changed his mind . . . I thought he liked me . . .'

'Oh Mum, don't worry, we're goin' to 'ave a word with 'im.' She looked up at the Doctor, and he saw 'that' look on her face. 'Oh dear, poor Elton, he's for it', he thought.

They went back into the TARDIS, and the Doctor did what Rose would call a 'Spock' search for Elton Pope. He was a transport manager who did retail logistics for a 'modest little haulage company'.

'Hah! It's the young man from the warehouse, remember, when we were chasing the Hoix? After all of the alien invasions and other similar events that we were involved with, Elton co-founded a group called LINDA, London Investigation 'n' Detective Agency with four others who were interested in us.'

'London Investigation 'n' Detective Agency?' Rose asked, emphasising the 'n'.

'Yeah, like Fish 'n' Chips, Rock 'n' Roll.'

'Hmm, okay.'

'It seems the group eventually got distracted from their original purpose and did things including novel readings, forming a band and 'blubbing'.'

'Blubbing?'

'Blubbing,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'Ho-ho, here we are look. In March, someone called Victor Kennedy infiltrated LINDA.'

He did some more searching. 'There appear to be plenty of Victor Kennedy's, but not this one.'

'Who is he then?' Rose asked. 'Alien?'

'Possibly, he seems very keen to meet me; maybe it's time to oblige. I'll get the TARDIS to find . . . Oh, now that's convenient, they seem to be in the same location.'

He ran around the console, setting the coordinates, and landed the TARDIS in an alleyway. He walked down the ramp, with Rose following.

'Someone wants a word with you,' he said to Elton who was kneeling next to a disgusting, green alien.

Rose stormed out of the TARDIS. 'You upset my mum.'

Elton looked up at the alien and pointed with his thumb. 'Great big absorbing creature from outer space . . .and you're having a go at me?'

'No one upsets my mum,' she said, not even noticing the great big absorbing creature from outer space.

'At last, the greatest feast of all. The Doctor,' the great big absorbing creature from outer space said sticking out his tongue and drooling.

'Interesting. A sort of Absorbatrix? Absorba . . .clon? Absorbaloff?' the Doctor said.

'Absorbaloff, yes,' it agreed.

'Is it me or is he a bit. . . Slitheen?' Rose whispered to the Doctor.

'Not from Raxacoricofallapatorius, are you?' the Doctor asked.

'No, I'm not, they're swine,' it protested. 'I spit on them. I was born on their twin planet.'

'Really? What's the twin planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius?'

'Clom.'

'Clom?'

'Clom. Yes. And I'll return there victorious, once I possess your travelling machine.'

'Well, that's never going to happen,' the Doctor said.

'Oh, it will. You'll surrender yourself to me, Doctor, or this one dies. You see, I've read about you, Doctor. I've studied you. So passionate, so sweet. You wouldn't let an innocent man die. And I'll absorb him, unless you give yourself to me,' the alien threatened.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. 'Sweet . . . maybe. Passionate . . . I suppose. But don't ever mistake that for nice. Do what you want.' Rose looked up at him with a worried expression; she seriously hoped this was part of a plan.

'He'll die, Doctor,' the alien said.

'Go on, then,' the Doctor urged. The alien hesitated, and Rose stood there, opened mouthed, was he calling his bluff?

'So be it.' The alien reached towards Elton.

'Mind you, the others might have something to say.'

The alien paused in mid touch. 'Others?'

One of the faces on his chest spoke. 'He's right. The Doctor's right. We can't let him. Oh, Mister Skinner, Bridget, pull!'

'No!' the alien shouted.

'For God's sake, pull!' the absorbed face said.

'No, don't - get off, get off!' The alien started to struggle with itself.

'If it's the last thing we ever do. Bliss! All of us together. Come on, pull!'

'Stop it!'

'LINDA united, pull!' All the faces started to stretch out of the alien, causing it to drop its silver headed cane.

'Elton, the cane. Break it!' the absorbed face said. He reached forward and broke the cane over his knee, causing it to spark and flash.

'My cane! You stupid man. Oh, no!' The alien melted into a blob on the paving stones and started to seep away.

'What did I do?' Elton asked in disbelief.

'The cane created a limitation field. Now it's broken, he can't stop. The absorber is being absorbed,' the Doctor explained.

'By what?'

'By the earth.'

The absorbed face formed in the paving stone. 'Bye, bye, Elton. Bye, bye.'

Elton just knelt there in silence, staring at the paving stone that had spoken to him and said goodbye.

'Who was she?' Rose asked quietly, all animosity towards the man gone.

'That was Ursula,' he said with tears in his eyes. Rose realised that he was just a mate to her mum, that it was her mum who had gotten the wrong idea (again). She walked over and knelt down beside Elton and put a comforting arm around his shoulders.

The Doctor looked on in proud amazement, Rose Tyler, courageous, and oh so compassionate towards others.

* * *

Rose was on her way back to her mother to tell her that she had gotten the wrong end of the stick when it came to Elton. He already had a girlfriend, even though she was now made of cement. He had been coerced into befriending Jackie so that he could find Rose, and ultimately the Doctor.

As she watched the time rotor pump up and down, she thought guiltily about her mum again and how she'd had to ask a stranger to fix her dilapidated washing machine.

'Doctor?' she asked, hesitantly.

'Mmmm,' he replied distractedly, concentrating on the console.

'Y'know that lottery ticket you got for that teacher at Deffry Vale High School?'

Suddenly, she had his full attention. 'Yes, what of it?' he asked suspiciously.

'Well, I was wonderin' . . . if you could get one for Mum. . . y'know, not millions or anythin', that'd do her head in, just enough to help her out I mean.'

'What's brought this on?'

'Well, I've been thinkin', we live the life of Riley, we have food, and we have TV, internet and phone. We go anywhere we like, an' never have to pay a thing, an' there's Mum, havin' to rely on strangers to fix knackered washin' machines now that Mickey's not there to look out for her.'

'Hmm, I see your point . . . how much do you think she needs?' he asked, surprising Rose by not arguing.

What Rose didn't realise, and he would never let on, was that he had a great deal of respect for Jackie Tyler. A single mum, who had raised such an amazing daughter, under such tragic circumstances, made even more tragic, by knowing that Pete Tyler had the potential to become a millionaire, just as he had dreamed.

'Er . . . I don't know, five hundred, a thousand? Enough for her to buy a new washin' machine, pay off some debts, have a holiday.'

'Let's have a look at Saturday then,' he said, studying the display screen. 'This Saturday, five numbers, there will be 249 winners, each getting £1,178; Jackie will be one of those winners.'

Rose squealed and hugged him. 'Thank you, thank you, that's brilliant.'

 **Clifton** **Parade, Peckham, London.**

Jackie Tyler was in the local, cheap supermarket, picking up a carton of milk, the cheap tea bags that were an acquired taste (which she hadn't acquired yet), a cheap loaf, plastic wrapped, anaemic cheese, and a tub of sunflower spread. Hopefully, she would soon have saved enough money to start shopping at a proper supermarket.

She popped into the newsagent to pick up a gossip magazine, one of the luxuries she allowed herself, and glanced at the National Lottery display stand. She was tempted, sorely tempted, she'd seen the documentary on the television about the winners, how it had changed their lives. It would certainly change hers.

But the odds of winning were stacked against her; she had heard that you had more chance of dialling random numbers and speaking to the Queen, than you had of winning the jackpot.

She returned to her flat and placed the carrier bag on the table, before reaching for the kettle and filling it. She felt the familiar fluttering in her chest as the TARDIS materialised in the courtyard downstairs. She put three mugs on the worktop and put a tea bag in each one.

It took them longer than usual to enter the flat, and Jackie assumed that he was probably bodging up some repair on that wreck of a ship of his. To say it was able to be bigger on the inside, and able to travel through time and space, it was still a wreck.

She heard the key in the lock, and the pair of them were chatting away as they came down the hallway.

'Mum, you in?' Rose called.

'In the kitchen Sweetheart, there's a cuppa waitin' for ya.'

They walked into the kitchen, and Rose was beaming a smile at her mum.

'Yer look like the cat that got the cream,' Jackie said.

'Well, I've got a surprise for ya, but you've gotta keep it secret.'

'Oh yeah, an' what would that be then?' Jackie asked suspiciously.

'First things first Mum, I've seen Elton, and I think you were barkin' up the wrong tree there, he had a girlfriend. . . well, still has a girlfriend. . . well, sort of has a girlfriend,' she rambled. Jackie smiled as she saw how she'd picked up the Doctor's way of talking.

'Anyway, he's sorted now, but I was concerned about ya not havin' Mickey to rely on to fix yer washin' machine, so . . .'

'Y'haven't gone an' bought one 'ave ya? 'Cos I won't 'ave it y'know,' Jackie said firmly. She might be struggling a bit with money, but she wasn't poor, and she wouldn't accept charity.

'No Mum, I spent a quid on this,' she said, taking the lottery ticket out of her pocket.

'Oh Sweetheart, ya shouldn't waste ya money on them.'

'Er, Mum,' she said, with a 'dribbled on your blouse' tone of voice, and nodding at the Doctor. 'Doctor . . . time traveller . . . time machine . . .'

The penny dropped, or more like the 117,800 pennies dropped, when she realised what Rose was hinting at. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth fell open.

'D'ya mean . . .'

'Yeah, it's a winnin' ticket, well it will be, but don't go crazy, it's not the jackpot, it'll be enough so you can get a new washin' machine an' anythin' else that you need. Oh, an' 'ave a nice holiday somewhere, eh?'

Jackie's eyes started to well up, as she stood and hugged the pair of them. 'Oh thank you. . . both of you. . . that money will be really helpful.'

The Doctor and Rose drank their mugs of tea, said goodbye to Jackie, and went back to the TARDIS. The Doctor took the TARDIS into the Vortex, and joined Rose in the kitchen, where she was cooking dinner.

'Fish and chips,' she said to his enquiring look.

'Oh brilliant.' He looked like a child in a sweet shop.

As an extra treat, she put the fish and chips in paper, and they went through to the living room to spend the evening in front of the TV. As they were eating, Rose shuffled over, snuggled up against his shoulder, looked up at him, and smiled.

'What?' he said, returning her smile.

'Nothin' . . . I was just thinkin', about all this, the TARDIS, the travellin' . . . the chips,' she said with a laugh. ' . . . You, I love it, I really love it.'

A big smile spread across his face, and he chuckled. 'Me too.' He put his fish and chips on his lap, and reached his arms around her shoulders. 'Me too.'

They watched a variety of programs from a variety of planets; a nature documentary about some weird, semi-intelligent plant. A 'Friends' type show that had small furry aliens with tails, the situations those tails got them into were hilarious. And there was a space version of 'MASH'.

'Hey,' the Doctor nudged Rose, as her eyes started to droop. 'It's past someone's bedtime.'

'I must have been droppin' off,' she yawned. 'For a skinny bloke, your shoulder is really comfortable.'

'Skinny eh? How's this for skinny?' With his left arm already around her shoulders, he turned towards her, scooped up her legs with his right arm, and stood up.

'Aaah, Watcha doin'?' she laughed, clinging around his neck.

'Taking you to bed,' he said.

Rose's face had a puzzled, surprised, and expectant expression at those words. 'Really?'

The Doctor realised that it had sounded better in his head, and rephrased it. 'To your bedroom . . . I'm taking you to your bedroom . . . so you can go to bed . . . and sleep.' That was enough digging of holes for one night.

He carried her down the hallway to her room, and gently placed her on the bed.

'Thank you,' she said with a coy smile.

'You're welcome. I'll go and make some hot chocolate, while you get changed.' He went out the door with a waggle of his eyebrows.

Rose smiled to herself and quickly changed into her pyjamas, and climbed under the duvet. Shortly afterwards, there was a knock at the door.

'Are you decent?' he asked through the door.

'Never been decent in me life,' she shot back. There was a chuckle from the other side of the door, and he took that to be a yes. He came in holding two mugs in one hand.

'There you are.' He placed her mug on the bedside table and was about to sit in the chair. Rose, on the other hand, felt that it was time to test the water, and see how far their relationship had come.

'Would you mind…?' she said, patting the top of the duvet next to her. 'Like I said, your shoulder was really comfortable.'

The Doctor looked at the bed she was patting, and her gorgeous, expectant smile. In his previous incarnations, he wouldn't have even considered it, but in this body, just like holding her hand felt SO right, and cuddling Rose Tyler felt even better.

He walked around the bed, propped up some pillows, and sat next to her, holding out his arm for her to snuggle into his shoulder. She grabbed her mug, and leaned into him, making herself comfortable.

'So, on Earth, or off Earth?' he asked her, wanting to know which of his adventures she wanted to listen to.

'Mmmm, last night was 'off Earth', so how's about an 'on Earth' tonight.' She took a sip of her delicious drink.

'Okay then, what haven't I told you about yet?' he pondered. 'Yet . . . Yeti, I haven't told you about the time I faced the Yeti yet, have I? Oh, I like that . . . Yeti-yet, Yeti-yet . . .'

'Don't talk beck,' Rose said in a South African accent, thinking of the 'Yakkity Yak' song, and laughing at her play on words.

The Doctor laughed with her, and then started his narrative. 'I was in my second incarnation . . .'

'It still sounds weird when you say that, like you're wearin' your second suit or somethin'.'

'I suppose it is in a way . . . same person, made to look different by wearing something different, in my case it's skin.'

'Oh it's more than that though, compared to when I first met you, this 'you' is more at ease . . . seems less troubled by your past.'

'Or maybe I just hide it better,' he thought to himself. 'So it was the Himalayas, 1935, pudding basin haircut; I was with Victoria and Jamie . . .'


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Pull-kick-pull-kick-breath, pull-kick-pull-kick-breath.

The Doctor was swimming lengths of the Olympic sized pool, trying to sort his head out. Long after Rose had fallen asleep, he had just sat there, reluctant to move. . . and he wondered why? It wasn't because he'd been afraid of waking her up; he'd felt the regular, slow rise and fall of her chest against his, her arm, relaxed over his chest. When he'd looked down at her gorgeous face, he'd seen her eyes moving under the lids as she'd dreamed.

Pull-kick-pull-kick-breath, pull-kick-pull-kick-breath.

He'd imagined those gorgeous, hazel eyes, gazing on the sights that her dream was showing her. Why was everything about this girl gorgeous? He was feeling things that he hadn't felt in hundreds of years, feelings that he hadn't felt since he had lived on Gallifrey, feelings he'd had when he'd had . . . a family.

Pull-kick-pull-kick-breath, pull-kick-pull-kick-breath.

Something was stirring inside him; 'This is the Beast within, and it has woken. It is the heart that beats in the darkness. It is the blood that will never cease. And now it will rise'. The Beast that was his emotions had woken and the universe had better watch out.

Pull-kick-pull-kick-breath, pull-kick-pull-kick-breath.

Reinette of course, had woken the Beast, when she snuck inside his head, while he was examining her thoughts. She had inadvertently stimulated the emotion centre in the Limbic system of his brain, and now he couldn't switch it off.

Pull-kick-pull-kick-breath, pull-kick-pull-kick-breath, turn.

But the Beast had stirred before, when the TARDIS took him to that department store, and he'd rescued Rose Tyler by taking her hand and telling her to run. He had been broken and vulnerable at that time, and she'd shown him such compassion and understanding.

Pull-kick-pull-kick-breath, pull-kick-pull-kick-breath.

And then he had regenerated, the flames of regeneration burning away some of the guilt and remorse, replacing them with hope and . . . what? An appreciation of life…and the appreciation of a pink and yellow girl. But with those, came the memories of a wife, children, grandchildren, all gone now, turned to dust.

He stopped at the edge of the pool and caught his breath, thinking about previous conversations. 'I thought you and me were . . . I obviously got it wrong' . . . 'You just leave us behind . . . Is that what you're going to do to me?'

'No, not to you' . . . 'I don't age. I regenerate . . . But humans decay . . . You wither and you die, imagine watching that happen to someone who you . . . love'. There, he'd finished that sentence, and he gasped at the emotion. He saw the smiling face of his long dead wife, from when they first met, as a young bride, as a mother, a grandmother, and as a . . . That image was still too much for him, but the grey, drawn, wrinkled face started to morph, the wrinkles faded, the skin tightened, the grey hair took on a golden hue; he was looking at the smiling face of Rose.

* * *

Rose entered the console room, wearing black trousers, yellow T-shirt and her denim jacket. She'd put her hair into a loose ponytail on the side.

'Mornin'' she said cheerfully.

The Doctor looked up from the console. 'Morning, sleep well?'

'Yeah, always do in the TARDIS. So what are we up to today then?'

Swimming in the Olympic sized pool had given him an idea. 'How about your near future, 21st century London?'

'Er, yeah, okay,' she said uncertainly.

'Right, here we go then.' He pulled the lever, and they felt the TARDIS land. He walked down the ramp with Rose behind him and he opened the door, to see a blue shipping container in his way, with only a six inch gap in between.

'Ah,' he said and closed the door, turning and looking sheepishly at Rose. 'A slight miscalculation,' he said as he ran back up to the console and started the time rotor again.

'Don't tell me, 19th century Cardiff again, or Red Coat soldiers in Scotland? No, I know, an army of Daleks,' she said with a grin.

'No, no, nothing like that, just ninety degrees out of place.'

'Eh?'

'You'll see,' he said as he re-landed the TARDIS.

'Ah!' he said with satisfaction, looking around.

Rose checked out a Shane Ward Greatest Hits poster on one of the containers. 'So, near future, yeah?'

'I had a passing fancy. Only it didn't pass, it stopped.' He started walking across the wasteland towards the street beyond, with Rose by his side.

They walked onto a street that said 'Dame Kelly Holmes Close'. 'Thirtieth Olympiad,' he said.

Rose linked arms with him. 'No way! Why didn't I think of this? That's great.' She hugged his arm.

'Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about,' he said as they walked under a banner for the 'London, 2012', with the Olympic rings on it. 'Wrestling each other in the sand with crowds stood around baying . . . No, wait a minute . . . that was Club Med.' He bumped her shoulder and laughed, Rose rolled her eyes at the joke.

'Just in time for the opening doo dah . . . ceremony, tonight, I thought you'd like that. Last one they had in London was dynamite. Wembley, 1948. I loved it so much, I went back and watched it all over again,' he rambled on, not noticing that Rose had stopped walking and was looking at a lamppost. 'Fella carrying the torch, lovely chap, what was his . . . ? Mark . . .? John . . . ? Mark . . . ? Legs like pipe cleaners, but strong as a whippet.'

'Doctor,' Rose called, the lamppost had posters on it.

'And in those days, everybody had a tea party to go to.'

'Doctor!' she called more urgently, this struck a chord with her.

'Did you ever have one of those little cakes with the crunchy ball bearings on top?'

'You should really look at this,' she shouted. She remembered the posters with her face on them, after she'd been away for twelve months.

He turned to look at Rose as he carried on talking. 'Do you know those, those, things . . . ?' He started to walk back to her. 'Nobody else in this entire galaxy's ever even bothered to make edible ball bearings. Genius.'

He stopped talking, and started reading. Two children were missing, Dale Hicks and Jane McCullen. 'What's taking them, do you think?' He started looking around in a circle. 'Snatching children from a thoroughly ordinary street like this . . . Why's it so cold . . . ? Is someone reducing the temperature?'

'It says they all went missing this week,' she said quietly, she was imagining what the parents were going through, just like her mum went through. 'Why would a person do something like this?'

'What makes you think it's a person?' he asked, when they heard a door open, and a woman put out a rubbish bag, before hurrying back inside.

'Whatever it is, it's got the whole street scared to death. Doctor, what…?' she turned, and saw him running up the street.

* * *

The Doctor was walking back into Dame Kelly Holmes Close, after making his way back from the Olympic stadium. There were a lot of people about, as the children had returned home.

'Cake?' a familiar voice called from behind him.

He turned to look, and saw Rose, holding out a fairy cake with silver sugar ball decorations on it, and laughed out loud. 'Top banana.' He took a bite. 'Mmm. I can't stress this enough. Ball bearings you can eat, masterpiece!'

They stood and looked at each other for a moment, and then fell into an embrace, not a hug, a proper, passionate embrace.

'Ooh, I thought I'd lost you.'

'Nah, not on a night like this. This is a night for lost things being found.' He grabbed her hand. 'Come on.'

'What now?' she asked uncertainly.

'I want to go to the Games,' he said in a high voice. 'It's what we came for.'

She nudged his shoulder. 'Go on, give us a clue. Which events do we do well in?'

'Well, I will tell you this . . . Papua New Guinea surprises everyone in the shot put.'

'Really . . . ? You're joking, aren't you?' she asked. 'Doctor, are you serious or are you joking?'

'Wait and see,' he said, taking her hand and walking down the street.

Fireworks started flashing in the sky. 'You know what? They keep on trying to split us up, but they never ever will,' she said light-heartedly, she was so relieved to get him back, but his reaction surprised her.

'Never say never ever,' he said seriously, he knew how things could change in an instant.

'Nah, we'll always be okay, you and me.' The Doctor didn't react, he seemed distracted. 'Don't you reckon, Doctor?' She was looking for reassurance from him.

'There's something in the air,' he said quietly, looking to the sky. 'Something coming.'

'What?' He was worrying her now.

He could feel it in the time lines. 'A storm's approaching.'

He shrugged off the feeling and smiled, changing his mood in an instant, in that way that left Rose struggling to keep up. 'We missed the opening ceremony, sorry.'

'You didn't though,' she laughed. 'You were the main event from what I saw.'

'Hah! I don't think it went quite as the organisers planned it, that's for sure.'

'C'mon,' she said pulling his hand. 'Let's go home, we can come back tomorrow and watch some of the events.'

'Ah, Rose, you can't see your mum outside of linear time, remember what happened when we saw your dad?'

'No,' Rose said smiling. 'I meant our home . . . the TARDIS.'

The Doctor stopped and looked at her, amazed. 'Really . . . the TARDIS? Well yes, of course, let's go.'

They walked down the street, arm in arm, completely unaware that 48 Bucknall House was now occupied by a young couple with two children. Jackie Tyler and her daughter Rose were on the list of the missing, presumed dead, from the Battle of Canary Wharf, five years previously.

'So what do you want to see first then?' Rose asked him as they ambled across the wasteland.

'Fencing, definitely fencing, sabre, I've got a thing about fencing since that little altercation with the Sycorax.'

'Little altercation,' Rose laughed. 'You were fighting for the survival of the human race.'

'So,' he grinned. 'Nothing new there then. And what about you, what do you want to see?'

'Gymnastics. D'yer know, I think I could've been in the team if Mum could 'ave afforded the after school club.'

He put the key in the lock and opened the door. 'I have no doubt at all.' He'd seen her as a six year old, and she'd shown promise even at that young age.

In keeping with the spirit of the stadium event, they had hot dogs for supper, as they watched the unusual opening ceremony via TARDIS video streaming.

['Just look at this! Utterly incredibly scenes at the Olympic stadium. Eighty thousand athletes and spectators. They disappeared, they've come back! They've returned. They've reappeared. It's quite incredible. Bob, this will certainly . . .'] the announcer was saying.

'I was really worried at this point, when you hadn't reappeared out of the drawing, I thought I'd lost you,' Rose told him.

He reached over and squeezed her hand. 'Nah, you don't get rid of me that easily.'

['But hang on; the Torch Bearer seems to be in a bit of trouble. We did see a flash of lightning earlier that seemed to strike him. Maybe he's injured. He's definitely in trouble.

Does this mean that the Olympic dream is dead?']

Rose watched again as the Doctor picked up the Olympic torch. 'I saw this on Trish's Telly, an' I nearly cried with relief when I saw you.' The Doctor grinned at her and waggled his eyebrows.

['There's a mystery man. He's picked up the flame. We've no idea who he is. He's carrying the flame. Yes, he's carrying the flame and no one wants to stop him. It's more than a flame now, Bob. It's more than heat and light. It's hope, and it's courage, and it's love.']

'He got that right,' Rose said, and talking of love, there was a question that had been niggling at her for ages, and she felt now might be the time to ask.

'Doctor, do you like me?' she asked hesitantly.

The Doctor took his eyes off the TV and looked at her. 'Eh, what kind of question is that? Of course I like you.'

'No, I mean, do you REALLY like me?'

Oh, hang on; this was one of those human female questions. She wasn't asking him if he liked her, she was asking him something else, and the TARDIS translation matrix was no help at all.

'Yes, I REALLY like you,' he said, hoping that the real question would become apparent.

'Only, with Mickey an' me splittin' up, an' him bein' in a different universe an' all . . . well, you haven't made a move or anythin',' she said trying, in a round about way to find out if their relationship was going anywhere.

Ah, there it was the hidden meaning in the question. He had to admit, he'd asked himself this question recently. 'Rose, there are a lot of things you don't know about me,' he started.

'You're tellin' me, I only just found out today that you're a dad.'

Oh yes, he'd let that slip earlier when he was distracted by building the Isolus scanner. He had used to be a dad, past tense, but he felt now wasn't the time to point that out. His face became sad at the memory.

'Yeah, sorry about that, I should have told you about that before now . . . but these things are difficult for me.' She reached over and held his hand.

'My physical scars heal when I regenerate, but the emotional scars, they don't burn away, and I carry them with me. I have suitcases full of emotional baggage up here.' He tapped his temple. 'So, Rose Tyler, I do like you, I really like you . . . a lot. And I respect you, and I care about you a great deal.'

Rose was getting upset now, her selfish impatience was making him uncomfortable, and she didn't want that for him. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push you or anythin', forget I said anythin'. I was just feelin' insecure, what with Sarah Jane and Reinette; I just wondered where I stood with you, if . . .'

'Yes, Rose,' he interrupted. 'You stand with me, at my side. You're helping me to heal those scars, and you've been so patient with me, and if you'll continue to do that for me, then yes.'

A tear trickled down her cheek. This poor man, this poor proud, scarred man was asking her for help, so that he could move on and look to the future. Rose could see that although the memories were still painful, he'd come to terms with them and was finding his peace.

She wiped her cheeks with her hands, and gave him a half hearted smile. 'D'ya remember after the Slitheen thing, I told you I was signin' up an' that you were stuck with me? Well I meant it; I'm stickin' with you forever.'

He had said yes, he wanted her by his side! That yes meant they had a chance at a future together, and she would do anything she could to help that happen. She snuggled into his shoulder again, and he held her close, running mental calculations on how long 'forever' really was.

They remained cuddled on the sofa for the rest of the evening, until it was time for her to get some sleep. Rose went to her room and changed into her pyjamas, and the Doctor brought in the mugs of hot chocolate, in their usual night time routine. And tonight, without prompting, or being asked, he sat on the bed with her and put his arm around her, it had been a challenging day, and an emotional evening.

'So, what do you want to hear about tonight?' he asked her.

She rested her head against his chest and looked up into his dark eyes. 'Let's see, tell me about another one of your companions. Where there any other feisty ones like Sarah Jane and me?'

He looked into the distance and then smiled. 'Leela, she was definitely feisty.'

'Wha', Like 'Leela' from 'Futurama', the 'fit' bird with one eye?'

The Doctor chuckled. 'It's a good job she's not here to hear you say that, you'd have a knife between your ribs right about now.'

Rose looked stunned. 'I said feisty, not homicidal, what were you doin' travellin' with someone like that.'

'Don't be too quick to judge, she was all right Leela. She was a Sevateem warrior, went about in a leather bikini, and carried a knife and poisonous janis thorns.'

'Leather bikini, janis thorns? Which one were you when you travelled with her?'

'Number four, floppy hat and big scarf,' he said with a smile.

'Oh yeah, I like him.'

He raised an eyebrow and gave her a quizzical look. 'Of course you like him . . . he's me.'

'Yeah, but he was a different you, like when I first met you, you were a different you . . .' She stopped talking, struggling to explain the point she was trying to make. She looked up and saw him grinning at her with that cheeky grin that she loved so much.

'Oh, you know what I mean,' she said with a laugh.

He let out a chuckle and continued. 'Leela was a savage, but a smart savage, and quick to learn. We had quite a few adventures, let's see, it's time for an 'off Earth' tonight isn't it? So, let's think . . . oh I know, it was our last adventure together, we were on Gallifrey, and I claimed the Presidency . . .'

'Hold on, hold on, time out here. You were President on your home planet?' she asked incredulously. She knew nothing about this incredible man, and Gallifrey, was that wise to talk about his home? 'Are you gonna be all right talkin' about it?'

'Oh yes, it was a good adventure, and Leela stayed behind to marry a Gallifreyan, but I'm getting ahead of myself . . .'

Rose nuzzled into his shoulder and made herself comfortable as he told the tale of Leela, he gently stroked her hair without thinking as he talked. He told of how he met her again in his seventh body, when she turned up at the old family house with Ace. She wasn't on Gallifrey when it was destroyed, but he didn't know what happened to her after that.

When he had finished, Rose was dozing with her head resting on his chest. He took the empty mug from her limp hand and shuffled from under her, gently lowering her head to the pillow. He had an overwhelming urge to kiss her cheek, and didn't resist, his lips gently brushing her cheek.

Still in the fog of early sleep, Rose reached up and caressed the back of his neck, her head turned, and her lips found his. It was a simple, chaste kiss, and the Doctor didn't resist, because it was the most gorgeous kiss he had ever experienced. It was sweet, innocent, and expressed the special bond that had developed between them.

Her hand released his neck, and her head rested back on the pillow with a contented 'mmmmph' sound. He stood up and walked to the door, turning back to look at his pink and yellow girl, asleep under the duvet. As he stood there, he remembered a phrase that Jackie used a lot with Rose.

'Goodnight Sweetheart,' he whispered as he left the room.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

When Rose awoke the next morning, she wasn't sure if she had dreamt, or if it was real, that the Doctor had kissed her. It wouldn't surprise her if it was a dream; she'd had plenty of dreams like that since Cassandra had hijacked her body and taken liberties.

After a shower, and getting dressed, she went to the kitchen for breakfast, and as usual, found the Doctor there waiting for her, with some waffles this morning, and maple syrup.

'Morning,' he said with a smile.

'Mornin',' she replied, looking at him, and trying to work out if he was more cheerful than normal. She dismissed it as wish fulfilment of the dream that she'd had about him kissing her.

After breakfast, they left the TARDIS and hopped on a bus to the O2 Arena, formerly known as the Millennium Dome, and now called the North Greenwich Arena for the Olympics. The Doctor used his psychic paper as a bus pass, which worked very effectively.

This venue was hosting the preliminaries of the artistic gymnastics, and Rose was in awe of some of the performances that she witnessed. When they came out of the arena, they looked across the river at the collection of skyscrapers, the tallest of which was One Canada Square, which was synonymous with Canary Wharf, where, unbeknown to them, their destinies lay.

After the gymnastics, they were able to visit the ExCeL Exhibition Centre, to watch the individual sabre in the fencing, where the Doctor pointed out some of the main players, and their strengths and weaknesses.

'Do you know who's goin' to win? 'Cos I'd have thought that would be a bit borin',' Rose said.

'Nah, think of Torvill and Dean, Sarajevo 1984 Winter Olympics and the Bolero. How many times have you watched it? You know they get a perfect score and win the gold, but it doesn't detract from the perfection of the performance.'

'Oh yeah, I see what yer mean.'

And so, over the next two weeks, they followed the preliminaries in as many events as they could, and attended as many of the finals as they could. They had been holding hands, hugging when a member of the England squad won, and cuddling up in the evening in front of the TV. Rose felt certain that something was changing in the Doctor's demeanour, he seemed to be more open (for him anyway), and more, well, loving is the only word she could think of.

Eventually, it came to the day of the closing ceremony, and Rose was roused from her slumber by a gentle knocking on her door.

'Rose, you awake?'

'Hmmmm.' She lifted her head off the pillow and wiped her hair from her face. 'Yeah,' she yawned.

The Doctor backed into the room, opening the door with his bum, 'a very nice bum' Rose thought as she saw it enter the room. He turned around and she saw he was holding a tray that contained a breakfast of toast, marmalade, orange juice, and a thin vase which contained a single red rose.

'Mornin',' she said, a big smile spreading across her face. 'What's all this?'

'Breakfast in bed, I thought it was about time I spoilt you.'

'Oh, that's lovely, thank you,' she said, risking a peck on the cheek as he leaned forward to put the tray on her lap. She wasn't sure if she was reading the signals correctly, and she wanted to see how he reacted.

She needn't have worried; he gave her a big smile and snuggled up beside her on the bed, helping himself to a piece of toast.

'I could get used to this,' she told him as she spread some marmalade on her toast.

'Quite right too,' he said.

Over the last two weeks, since Rose's question about their relationship, he had been soul searching, and his soul was nine hundred years old, that was a lot of searching. Rose had been upfront with Mickey and told him that they were over as a couple, and the reason for that was that she wanted to be with him.

And all the time that Rose had been travelling with him, she had helped him to confront his demons, and if not banish them, at least tame them. She had also helped him connect with his emotions, to come to terms with his guilt, his anger, his pain, his loss.

It was time for him to be upfront with her, he didn't know where this would go, or how long it would last, Hell, he was nine hundred years old, and no spotty teenaged virgin, and was under no illusions of how difficult this would be. But Rose had shown that she was committed to him, on more than one occasion, and it was only fair that he did the same.

'We need to talk,' he said, looking serious, but happy.

'Wha', is this what I think it is?' her face full of expectation.

'That, Rose Tyler, depends on what you think it is. What I think it is, is me being straight with you, and thanking you for being patient with me when, at times, I've been a complete idiot.'

'Only at times?' she teased, giving him a lopsided smile.

He laughed at that. 'You're right, as usual, I mean even a Dalek could see what I couldn't . . . or wouldn't,' he admitted. 'I was broken and damaged when you met me, afraid to feel in case it consumed me and destroyed me. But you took the raw wound of my guilt, my anger, and my pain, and you soothed it, caressed it and healed the wound. And for that, I thank you.'

'You're welcome. Does this mean you are now officially my boyfriend?' she said, giving him her teasing, tongue between the teeth smile.

'Oh yeah, I suppose it does,' he said with a smile, and then looking thoughtful, almost worried.

'What's up, not havin' second thoughts before we've even started are ya?' she said with a frown.

'Oh, no, no, nothing like that. I was just wondering what your mum will say.'

Rose spluttered a laugh, and looked at him lovingly. 'Oh you, Mum really likes you, I know she makes out that she doesn't, but trust me, when she teases someone, it means she likes them, you'd know if she didn't like you. Now come here.'

She reached up to the side of his face, and tentatively brushed her lips against his, she was still unsure how far and how fast to take this new development. 'One step at a time' she thought to herself, one step at a time.

Blimey, he was being kissed by Rose Tyler, and it was brilliant, molto bene, ace-amondo. 'Ace-amondo'? No he wouldn't be using that one again. It wasn't the first time they'd kissed, but it was the first time that she had been aware and in control, and it was wonderful.

'Mmmmm, if this happens when we're boyfriend and girlfriend, then yes, I am definitely your boyfriend.'

Rose giggled at his dopey grin. 'C'mon, let's finish our breakfast, and we can go an' see the last events and then catch the closing ceremony.'

The Doctor was relieved that Rose was relaxed and enjoying herself. He carried a lot of emotional baggage with him, and it was going to take a long time to unpack it all, iron it, fold it nicely, and put it away. But what he knew about his new girlfriend was that she was kind, considerate, and patient.

That night they walked along Dame Kelly Holmes Close for the last time, and went back at the TARDIS. They walked up the ramp, arm in arm, and at the console they turned to face one another, Rose putting her arms around his neck, and his arms went around her waist.

'You mister, were windin' me up,' she said with a pouty smile.

'Me?' he said innocently.

'Yeah, Papua New Guinea in the shot put you said.'

'Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that . . . You're right, I was winding you up,' he said with his boyish grin. 'But tell you what; to make it up to you, I'll take you somewhere where they have flying fish.'

'Oh, I've seen those on the telly, they jump out of the river into the boats.'

'No, I'm talking fish that fly,' he said flapping his arms. 'Ray-like fish with hydrogen swim bladders that glide gracefully through the air.' He started setting the controls on the console.

'Wow that sounds great.'

The TARDIS landed in a valley, surrounded by strange, arched rock formations. The rising sun shone through the formations, casting interesting shadows across the valley. Hand in hand the Doctor and Rose walked down the ramp and stepped through the doors.

Rose looked on in wonder at the strange landscape and the sun low on the horizon. There was a low whooshing sound, as a large 'Manta Ray' like animal slowly glided over their heads, followed by another, and then another. They performed a graceful, aerial ballet in front of them, and they just stood there in awe, side by side.

'How many more wonders are you goin' to show me?' she asked him in a quiet voice, not wanting to disturb the magical moment.

He looked over at her and smiled. 'How long are you going to stay with me?'

She returned his smile. 'Forever.'

Their hands found each other, their fingers entwined.

'Then there's a whole lifetime of wonders out there just waiting for us.'

They stood quietly, enjoying the demonstration of aerial prowess until the creatures had finished feeding and flown away.

'Oh, that was beautiful . . . what is this place?' she said, hugging his arm.

'It's an asteroid in the Rings of Akhaten. You can't see the planet Akhaten at the moment, it's below the horizon,' he told her, nodding to his left. 'It's sentient you know.'

'What is?'

'The planet, imagine that, a planet that can think. Even better, imagine if your planet could think . . . it'd probably say 'get off and leave me alone',' he said with a grin, Rose laughed. 'Oh, and 'just scratch that bit between my Himalayas before you go, I can't quite reach'.'

He pointed to something that looked like a small moon. 'The inhabited asteroid Tiaanamat, over there is built on the largest piece of ore on the outer ring as a docking point. Many species from across the universe live there, buying and selling rare and exotic goods in vast winding markets.

'Oh, markets, can I go shoppin'?' she said with a cheeky smile.

* * *

Rose stepped out of the TARDIS with her rucksack and put it on while she waited for the Doctor to join her. They were in the children's play area near Bucknall House, where the climbing frames were surrounded with railings. He came out and closed the door and they set off towards her mum's flat.

It was her mum's flat now, not hers, not any longer. Her home was with the Doctor, on the TARDIS. She skipped over the low railing, and their hands instinctively sort each other out. They swung their arms, and had a lightness to their step that reflected the relaxed ease of the new phase of their relationship.

They chatted and laughed as they walked through the courtyard, she was telling him about the latest phone conversation she'd had with her mum. Jackie had asked for something in a shop that could be taken two ways, one of which was very embarrassing.

'She's lovely,' Rose laughed.

'Yeah . . . yeah,' the Doctor laughed. 'Brilliant really.'

'We had a big chat about everythin' as usual . . . We get on really well,' she told him, almost skipping with happiness as they approached the security door.

He opened the door for her. 'She really wants to see you again.'

'I know, and me her.' Even if they didn't tell Jackie that they were a couple, if they weren't careful, she would see it in the way they were behaving.

'Mum, it's us! We're back!' Rose called out from the hallway as they entered the flat.

Jackie ran from the kitchen to greet them. 'Oh, I don't know why you bother with that phone. You never use it!'

Rose just grinned at her pretended annoyance. 'Shut up, come here!' she said as she grabbed her into a hug. The Doctor smiled at them and squeezed past.

'Oh, I love you!' Jackie said.

'I love you!' Rose replied.

'I love you so much!' Jackie spotted the Doctor sneaking past. 'Oh no, you don't. Come here!'

Jackie grabbed him and gave him a big wet kiss. 'Oh, you lovely big fella! Oh, you're all mine,' she cooed, as she hugged him.

'Just, just, just put me down!' What was the matter with her? Hang on, did she know, had she spotted that they were a couple?

'Yes, you are,' Jackie said and gave him another kiss for good luck. The Doctor looked decidedly uncomfortable and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Rose took the rucksack off her shoulders and handed it to her mum. 'I've got loads of washin' for ya, and I got you this,' she said showing her a gold ornament. 'It's from the market on this asteroid bazaar. It's made of . . . er . . . what's it called?' She looked over her shoulder to the Doctor, who was leafing through a magazine.

'Bazoolium,' he reminded her.

'Bazoolium,' she repeated with an excited smile. 'When it gets cold, yeah, it means it's going to rain. When it's hot, it's going to be sunny. You can use it to tell the weather.'

'I've got a surprise for you an' all,' Jackie told her.

Rose looked disappointed. 'Oh, I get her bazoolium, she doesn't even say thanks.

'Guess who's coming to visit? You're just in time. He'll be here at ten past. Who do you think it is?'

'I don't know.'

'Oh go on, guess.'

'No, I hate guessing. Just tell me.'

'It's your granddad, Granddad Prentice. He's on his way any minute . . . Right, cup of tea!' she said, going through to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

'She's gone mad,' Rose told the Doctor, in a quiet, conspiratorial tone.

'Tell me something new,' He replied with a smirk.

'Granddad Prentice, that's her dad. But he died . . . like, ten years ago. Oh, my God. She's lost it.' She went to the kitchen door, the Doctor behind her. 'Mum? What you just said about granddad . . .'

'Any second now,' Jackie interrupted her.

Rose was concerned about her mum. Was she developing dementia, had she had a stroke? She felt guilty that she hadn't been here for her. 'But he passed away. His heart gave out. Do you remember that?'

'Of Course I do.' Jackie gave her a look as though it was Rose who had gone daft.

'Then how can he come back?'

'Why don't you ask him yourself? Ten past, here he comes.'

The Doctor and Rose watched in disbelief, as a shadowy figure walked through the exterior wall, the kitchen units, and stood beside Jackie.

'Here we are, then. Dad, say hello to Rose. Ain't she grown?'

What the hell?!


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

'WHOP!'

'I think this is the on switch,' Rose said, as she 'jumped' back from what the Doctor nicknamed 'Pete's World'. The Doctor looked up with surprise from the computer he was rebooting.

What the hell was she doing? He was fairly certain he was going to die in his attempt to defeat the Daleks and the Cybermen, and he didn't want Rose to go the same way. And if by some miracle they did survive, she would be trapped here, never able to see Jackie again. He ran over and gripped her arms.

'Once the breach collapses, that's it,' he said angrily. 'You will never be able to see her again, your own mother!' He knew what that was like, not being able to see your own family, and he didn't want Rose to go through that anguish.

'I made my choice a long time ago, and I'm never going to leave you,' she said in a quiet, but determined voice. Her mind was made up, she'd said forever, and she meant it. 'So what can I do to help?'

'Systems rebooted. Open access,' an electronic female voice announced.

He saw that defiant look on her face, and God how he loved it. 'Those coordinates over there, set them all at six. And hurry up.'

She went over to the terminal, removing the dimension button from around her neck, and started entering the coordinates. She saw a proximity alarm flashing and clicked on the icon.

'We've got Cybermen on the way up,' she said, looking at the surveillance footage on the computer.

The Doctor ran over to have a look. 'How many floors down?'

'Just one. ' The Doctor went back to the computer and finished inputting the lever command code.

'Levers operational,' the computer announced, and a broad smile spread across his face.

'That's more like it. . . bit of a smile. . . the old team,' she said, matching his smile.

He grabbed the Magnaclamps. 'Hope and Glory, Mutt and Jeff, Shiver and Shake.'

'Which one's Shiver?'

'Oh, I'm Shake,' he said as he gave her a Magnaclamp. She followed his lead and put it on the wall by the lever.

'Press the red button,' he told her, and the clamp fastened itself to the wall. They went to the levers and knelt down in front of them, ready to lift them into the locked position.

'When it starts, just hold on tight. Shouldn't be too bad for us but the Daleks and the Cybermen are steeped in Void stuff. Are you ready?'

'So are they.' Rose was looking out of the window of Yvonne Hartman's office, where she could see four Daleks about to attack.

'Let's do it!' he shouted, and they lifted the hefty levers into place.

'Online,' the computer announced as they ran to the Magnaclamps to hold on. A bright light came out of the breach and a strong wind rushed into it, sucking the first Daleks through the windows and into itself.

'The breach is open! Into the Void! Ha!'

Daleks and Cybermen started streaming through the window and into the Void, becoming a blur as they accelerated from further a field. Something hit the wall hard near Rose, she thought it was the Dalek Crucible, but couldn't be sure. What she was sure of, was that the vibration had loosened her lever and it started to move.

'Offline.' the computer told them

Rose tried to reach across to the lever, but it was too far, she would have to let go of the clamp and risk a jump to the lever. The Doctor looked on in horror as he saw her let go of the clamp. 'Oh thank Rassilon for her gymnastics' he thought as she caught the lever and manoeuvred herself into a position where she could push it up.

'I've got to get it upright!' she called out. She looked over at him, and for the first time since he'd met her, he saw fear in her eyes.

'Online and locked,' the computer said. She'd done it! But it wasn't over yet, she was closer to the breach now, and the pull was stronger, and she didn't have as firm a grip on the lever as she'd had on the clamp.

'Rose, hold on…! Hold on!' he shouted, reaching out for her, but she couldn't, she was horizontal now, and the pull was too strong. Her world had turned through ninety degrees and she was now dangling from the lever over the very gates of Hell itself.

When their eyes met, he saw that the fear in her eyes had gone, replaced with a calm sorrow and regret. She knew what would happen next, and she was okay with that, she'd had a good life, made all the better by meeting the Doctor.

She felt the last of her fingers lose the fight against the pull of the breach, and felt as though she were floating in mid air. She had no sensation of moving, and she could hear singing, a beautiful sound that she had heard somewhere before.

She started to see her life play out, not before her eyes, but in her minds eye. 'Oh, that really happens then', she thought to herself in amusement, as she saw her childhood in the minutest detail. She saw her mum, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, old friends, all come to say goodbye one last time.

She saw her holidays on the beach in Tenby, with her red plastic bucket and spade in her hand. She saw birthdays, Christmases, her red bike (brilliant, she loved that bike), Mickey, Jimmy, Henrick's, all of it. The good times, the bad times, and the ugly ones.

And then her life had changed, she had met the Doctor. There was fun and laughter, adventures with lots of running, and the danger didn't seem to matter anymore, 'it was just the bits in between' he had told her mum.

That made her think about her mum, and how she would never know whether she was alive or dead. Although she felt guilty about that, she hoped that she would have been proud that her daughter died saving the world.

She saw today, how it had started out so good, walking hand in hand with her love. Excited about seeing her mum, and maybe telling her about their romance, only to have events overtake them and escalate out of control.

As these images played out in her head, she could see him, swinging on the clamp, reaching out to her and screaming her name. 'If only he'd shown me that much emotion when it mattered' she thought to herself sadly, maybe then we could have been lovers.

She realised she must be moving towards the breach, because he seemed so far away now. 'Don't worry, my Love, my Doctor', she thought, 'it'll be all right, don't cry . . . just remember me with a smile, eh?' She remembered a message from oh so long ago. 'And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing . . . that's all . . . one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Doctor. Have a fantastic life, but don't try and do it on your own, because something's are worth getting your heart broken for'.

'Thump!' She'd hit something, and it was holding her. It must be a Cyberman, this was it then, 'please don't let it hurt', she pleaded to what ever wanted to pass itself off as a god.

Wait a minute; whatever was holding her was soft and warm.

What the hell?

She was saved! Oh thank you, she'd been rescued from the jaws of death and she'd be able to keep her promise to him, she would stay with him forever. She looked over her shoulder, and her heart sank when she saw the expression on his face. The pain, the anguish, the loss, she'd seen that look before, when he was all ears and attitude.

And then he was gone.

* * *

Her face! She had turned at the last moment and looked at him, with a look of longing, of love, and realisation, that he had saved her, and he very nearly hadn't. He'd contemplated letting go of the Magnaclamp, and pushing off with his legs so that he could hurtle across the room to hold her in one last embrace before they fell into the Void, because he didn't want her to face that alone.

There were occasions before when he thought that she'd died, in van Statten's bunker, and again on Satellite Five, and on each occasion, he felt as though his world had ended. He didn't want to live with that feeling again, but then a stray, rogue thought flashed through his mind.

What if he could save her?

That thought set in motion a series of events that culminated in Pete Tyler appearing in the corner of the Lever Room, catching Rose, and taking her safely back to his universe.

It had been a Hobson's choice for him, they could both die together, or they could both live apart, either choice would break his hearts, but this was the lesser of two evils. The light faded, and the wall rippled for a few moments before becoming solid once more.

'Systems closed,' the electronic voice announced, just in case he hadn't noticed.

He let go of the Magnaclamp, walked down the room, and put his hand and his ear to the wall. Something tingled in his mind, it was Rose. He could feel her, in Pete's World; she was standing in the same place, their bodies occupying the same space. There was one last thing he could do for her, he sent her all the love in his hearts and soul, hoping that she could feel it and keep it with her, wherever she might end up.

His breath caught in his throat, she had felt it, he was certain of that, he'd felt her cries of anguish and despair, and it hurt him; it hurt like that day when Gallifrey burned.

The cracks between the universes were healing and the sensation started to fade.

She was gone!

Forever!

The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him, he had sent her away so that she would be safe with Jackie and Mickey, but she had made a fuss and moaned, and she'd come back. Typical! But he couldn't stay mad at her, because secretly, he had hoped that she would.

And now that she was with Jackie and Mickey, he wanted her back here with him. He put his hands in his pockets and slowly walked away, shoulders hunched, his feet heavy; reluctant to leave the last place where he had seen his Rose.

He wandered unhindered through corridors and stairwells, making his way back to the TARDIS. He could feel her calling him back to her present location in the main warehouse. The Touchwood staff were either wandering about in shock or they were dead, deleted by Cybermen or exterminated by Daleks.

The TARDIS was standing alone, a sentinel in the dimly lit warehouse. He lovingly touched the blue wooden panelling. A warm 'hum' filled his mind as the TARDIS welcomed him back. He stepped inside and leaned back against the door, clicking it shut. His head rested against the door as he stared at the arched ceiling. The TARDIS song had changed to harmonics in a minor key.

It was a Gallifreyan lament for the dead, when the last regeneration had ended and the Time Lord or Lady had finally succumbed to time itself. The TARDIS and Rose were sisters, soul-sisters. Rose had once risked everything to look in to the heart of the TARDIS to save him, and the TARDIS had looked in to Rose. It had given her the power to save her Time Lord, while trying to protect her from the very same force that would kill her. And now she was lost, the TARDIS felt that loss as much as he did.

He felt tears burning his eyes and he looked down from the ceiling over to the console. What he saw next tipped him over the edge as he took a ragged breath and started to weep. Rose's blue hoodie was draped over the handrail. He remembered her leaving it there. She was always leaving her jackets over the handrail.

He slowly slid down the door and ended in a heap on the floor. Tears came freely now as his hearts broke and he cried. The song of the TARDIS changed as she joined him in weeping for their lost soul-mate. He thought about what Tennyson had written about his friend Arthur Hallam. 'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all'.

For a man who abhors violence, at this precise moment, he felt like travelling back to 1849 and punching him on the nose. If he hadn't dared to love Rose, he wouldn't be feeling as though both his hearts had been torn from his chest. Hundreds of years of running away from his past had dulled the pain of the loss of his wife. Rose had helped him come to terms with the loss of his family . . . his home, and now pain was back again, laughing at him for trying to forget.

He didn't know how long he had sat there, wallowing in his grief, but the TARDIS nudged his mind, encouraging him to save his pink and yellow girl. He stood and walked up the ramp to the console, looking at the display screen to select the best location for his plan to succeed.

He set the coordinates and started the time rotor. There was no doubt that he would land in the right place and at the right time, because the TARDIS wanted her 'soul-sister' safe. And she didn't let him down; she landed in a basement communications hub, five minutes before they opened the breach.

Every muscle in his body was screaming for him to run to the top floor, grab Rose and bring her into the TARDIS and fly far away. But every Time Lord instinct was screaming that he couldn't. So he had to stick to his original plan. He went around to the view screen, and tapped into the Torchwood CCTV system, bringing up a view of the lever room where he could see himself and Rose preparing to open the Void.

He picked up the trim phone on the console and dialled Jackie's number. The TARDIS routed the call through the Void as it was opened with the levers.

'Hello?' Jackie said, puzzled at who could be calling her in a parallel universe.

'JACQUELINE, ANDREA, SUZETTE TYLER! FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE JUST SHUT UP AND HAND THE PHONE TO PETE!' the Doctor shouted down the phone. Jackie was so shocked, she was speechless. She handed the phone to Pete.

'Hello?' Pete said with a questioning voice.

'Pete, I don't have much time. That's a bit silly really when you have a time machine. Sorry, I'm rambling, I'm nervous. Switch the phone to speaker-phone.' Pete looked at the phone and found the speaker-phone button.

'OK, it's on speaker-phone,' he told the Doctor.

'Right! Rose is in danger!' He heard Jackie gasp. 'I'm in the TARDIS and it's routing this call through the cracks in the universe. I've tapped into the surveillance cameras and I'm watching myself and Rose open the breach. Are you in the white room with the levers?' he asked them.

'Yes, I'm looking at the far wall now.' Pete replied.

'Good! Rose is at the lever to your right, hanging onto a magnaclamp. In a moment she will let go and re-lock the lever. I need you to hand the phone to Mickey and walk to the right hand corner of the room with one of those yellow buttons.' Pete handed over the phone and walked to the corner.

'OK, I'M HERE!' he shouted from the corner, putting one button around his neck and holding the other in his hand.

'Step forward about five paces and brace yourself. Rose is going to lose her grip and I need you to jump in, catch her, and jump out before she's pulled into the breach. You've only got a small amount of Void stuff on you, so you'll have some inertia before you feel the pull. Get ready, she's on the lever now, she's losing her grip.'

He relived the moment again, as he watched Rose lose her grip and fall towards the Void. 'Three, two, one, JUMP!'

He heard the 'whop' of the dimension button as Pete appeared and caught Rose; he saw her look back and froze the image on the screen. He zoomed in on her face, tears rolling down his cheeks, as his hand gently caressed the screen, tracing her face with his fingers, as if trying to brush that stray hair behind her ear, as he'd seen her do so many times before, and would never see her do again.

He kissed his fingers and placed them lovingly on her lips on the image.

'Bye Sweetheart,' he whispered.

 **The End**


End file.
